No respite for IEBC as House probes purchases

The ghosts of the 2013 General Election continue to haunt the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission if recent statements before a House committee are anything to go by.

The Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC), which is chaired by Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo, had summoned former CEO James Oswago, former director Dismas Ong’ondi and former procurement manager Bernard Nyachieo to explain the audit queries raised by Auditor-General Edward Ouko in the procurement of biometric voter registration and electronic identification kits.

PAC also invited Deputy CEO Beatrice Nyabuto, Director of Voter Registration Immaculate Kassait and former finance director Edward Kenga Karisa. 

Mr Oswago was to appear before PAC on Thursday but he asked for more time to get documents from his former employers to help the committee understand the challenges IEBC faced.

But the serving and former officials who appeared before PAC carried on with the accusations and counter-accusations that had marred the procurement before the 2013 elections.

One of the officials, Sunday Nation was told, privately informed members of PAC that he was invited by a commissioner to a meeting with the National Intelligence Service (NIS) during which modalities of hiring a spy by IEBC were discussed.

INLUENCE AWARD

First to appear before PAC was Mr Ong’ondi, who sensationally pointed to attempts by IEBC chairman Issack Hassan and another commissioner, Mr Mohammed Alawi, to influence the award of the tender for BVRs by introducing to tender committees bidders they favoured.

Face Technologies of South Africa had quoted Sh4.78 billion for the BVRs while 4G Identity Solutions of India and Symphony quoted Sh3.72 billion and Sh3.85 billion respectively. The fourth company, On Track Innovations (OTI) of Israel had quoted Sh8.22 billion.

However, after squabbles broke out within the commission, the tender was cancelled and the BVRs were procured through a government-to-government tender.

“He (Mr Hassan) introduced me to representatives of Avant International Technology, which had interest in the tender in June 2012 during a commission retreat in Mombasa,” Mr Ong’ondi told the committee.
System failure

Mr Ong’ondi, who was sacked by the commission after the elections, largely on his advice against procurement of voter identification devices, also blamed Mr Hassan of proceeding with the procurement in spite of advice against it by the ICT department and that of an external IT consultant — International Foundation for Electoral Systems — that the system was likely to fail during the elections.

Also mentioned as having allegedly tried to influence the tenders is Mr Alawi, who also reportedly introduced Mr Ong’ondi to representatives of a firm he had interests in so that it could get favourable consideration.

When their turn arrived, Ms Nyabuto and Ms Kassait blamed “high-level decisions” for going ahead with the tenders for the electronic devices that suffered massive failure on election day.

Of concern was that the Electronic Voter Identification Devices (Evids) were supplied by a Face Technologies, while the BVRs were supplied by Safran Morpho, which had been identified by the Canada in the government-to-government tender, and yet the two devices were supposed to be configured and work together.

UNDER PRESSURE

Ms Nyabuto said the commission was also under immense pressure from political parties and the public to deliver the elections electronically, offering a glimpse into perhaps why the commission went headlong into failure.

It also emerged that the 15,000 BVRs, and 30,000 laptops procured by the IEBC might not work in the 2017 elections due to “monumental logistical challenges”, as the devices will require at least six batteries to last the duration of the elections.

Mr Oswago is expected before PAC on Monday in what some committee members intimated could be an explosive session, as he is believed to have documents implicating his former boss, Mr Hassan, and other commissioners for allegedly manipulating the procurement of the BVRs and the Evids.

In the special audit, Mr Ouko had accused Mr Oswago and other top IEBC officials of mismanaging the procurement of the kits and other electoral materials that resulted in huge losses of public funds.

But Mr Oswago, who has been charged in court by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, could be looking at the committee as an appropriate avenue to say all that he knows about the procurement.

Some of the documents likely to emerge are minutes from the commission plenary chaired by Mr Hassan on the procurement of the electoral kits.