ODM wants ballot papers tender award revoked

The Orange Democratic Movement has demanded the cancellation of a Sh2.5 billion ballot paper printing tender awarded to a Dubai-based firm.

The party on Sunday said it would settle for nothing less than credible elections, and that it would campaign for fresh tendering.

It accused the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of playing dirty games as part of a wider political scheme to undermine free and fair elections next year.

Siaya Senator James Orengo and the party’s Director of Elections Junet Mohammed warned that ballot procurement was sensitive and should be handled with utmost openness.

Mr Orengo said the hurried procurement of ballot papers a year to the elections and prioritising the matter over other important issues that required supplies was questionable.

“We wonder why someone is insisting that the discredited commission on its way out should rush to do everything, including tendering for vital supplies for an election coming one year later,” said Mr Orengo, adding that the tender should be stopped immediately since it was already clouded in a controversy.

But IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba on Sunday evening insisted that the deal was clean and had been awarded through a normal framework contract.

“We have only sought for a supplier through a framework contract. We are yet to place an order for a single ballot paper. No one should be worried about this,” he said.

HUGE LOCAL PARTNER

The Dubai-based printer, Al Ghurair, has been given notice of award to supply 130 million ballot papers to be used in elections for six positions next year, according to official documents seen by the Nation.

Mr Orengo warned that the presence of a huge local partner to Al Ghurair, whose office is in Westlands, Nairobi, with local directors, raised fears that access to the ballot papers before voting was possible.

He also claimed that a big election-rigging syndicate had been put in place and accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of delaying the appointment of a new commission in order to allow the current officials to carry on with the procurement of vital election equipment before leaving office.

“We wonder what Issack Hassan and his team are still doing in office. The existing laws talk of seven commissioners and they are nine. We are also surprised at their level of arrogance and we wonder who is their godfather,” said Mr Orengo.

Mr Mohammed said in a statement that ODM would not tolerate dirty tricks meant to subvert the will of the people.

“After concerted efforts by the people of Kenya to enforce reforms and discipline in the management of Kenya’s elections especially as we approach 2017, the country is once again in shock that a resistant and largely disgraced electoral commission still fighting image issues is sticking with the old stinking ways of doing things,” said Mr Mohammed.

Kenyan elections are always fraught with anxiety and fears of rigging. Though it has never been independently demonstrated that procurement has been linked to stealing elections, there is usually competition between the various factions of the political elite for access to tender deals.