Printing of ballots starts this week, says IEBC boss
The production of the ballot papers by the Dubai-based Al Ghurair will start by the end of this week, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has said.
IEBC Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba said the commission is already running late in its timelines in the production of the 120 million ballot papers to be used in the high-stakes August 8 General Election.
CONTACTS
“We just approved the list of candidates in the elections. We are submitting the ballot paper proofs by the end of this week. Production has to start by the end of this week,” Mr Chiloba said in an NTV interview on Tuesday night.
"The first delivery has to start by July 25, and the last batch on August 2."
National Super Alliance (Nasa) presidential candidate Raila Odinga has called for the cancellation of the tender, arguing that the Dubai-based firm had had contacts with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who he says influenced the awarding of the Sh2.5 billion contract.
“IEBC cannot tell us that there is only one company in this world that can print ballot papers," Mr Odinga said at his Capitol Hill office on Tuesday.
"Printing ballot papers is not rocket science. There are several companies in Europe, Belgium, and UK which are capable of printing the ballot papers.”
2013 MESS
Mr Odinga alleged that he was trying to prevent a repeat of the 2013 elections in which he alleged extra ballot papers were printed for the Jubilee team.
“In 2013, if you ask any of the former commissioners of IEBC, they will confirm that there were two million extra ballot papers printed and were handed to the Director of Intelligence, and they were marked at Kenyatta University and they were stuffed,” he said.
The Nasa leader went on: “And when the computer was rejecting the stuffed ballot papers, they crushed the server and that is why they delayed the announcement of the results.
"People voted on Monday, results were out on Tuesday, but they were announced on Saturday. And we do not want a repeat of that.”
But in the NTV interview, Mr Chiloba said he had not met President Kenyatta on the tender as had been alleged by Mr Odinga.
MET TWICE
“I have me the President twice in my life. One by chance at a conference in Mombasa, and the next at State House when we paid him a courtesy call introducing the new commissioners,” he said.
The electoral agency chief said the process of printing the ballot papers is meticulous and it is impossible to cancel the tender now.
Getting a different firm even through direct procurement, he said, will take “not less than two weeks.”
“Two weeks is already too late. As we speak now, we are already too late. We are trying to recover on lost time,” said Mr Chiloba.
He went on: “For us to print 120 million ballots, it is not just a paper you will find on the street. They are a security asset that must meet the standard, packaged properly and delivered in the right place. You do not just wake up one morning and say you want to print a ballot paper.”
Mr Chiloba said that the offer by the commission to take representatives of political parties, religious and civic society leaders as well as the media to to Dubai to witness the printing of the ballots was still open.
DIALOGUE
“It was supposed to be June 22. We might adjust it up to Friday this week,” he said of the Dubai trip.
“We have never closed the door in terms of dialogue to anyone. We have been having meetings with different stakeholders since February, when the new commissioners came in.”
He said the ballot papers will be tamperproof, arguing that they want to ensure they get it right.
“Al-Ghurair has been printing ballot papers for us since 2014. This is not the first time,” said Mr Chiloba.
“We are open, but we must also be pragmatic in the sense that we must have an election in August. If we must hold the election on August 8, we must proceed in the manner in which we have proceeded,” Mr Chiloba said.
This is the first time that a ballot paper tender has become a contentious issue in the running of the elections in Kenya, Mr Chiloba added.
