Oswago, IEBC chiefs deny charges

Electoral commission chief executive James Oswago was Wednesday charged alongside three others with four counts of abuse of office and failure to comply with procurement rules.

The prosecution comes after three months of investigations into procurement of poll kits worth Sh1.3 billion for the March 4 General Election.

Mr Oswago’s co-accused are deputy commission secretary in charge of Support Services Wilson Shollei, director of Finance Edward Karisa and procurement manager Willy Kamanga.

Last April, the Supreme Court recommended, after the conclusion of a petition by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga against the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta, that electoral commission officials be investigated and those who may have been involved in impropriety during the procurement of the kits that failed to work be prosecuted.

Mr Oswago and Mr Shollei faced the first count of failing to ensure that changes made to the contract awarded to Face Technologies Limited for the supply of Electronic Voter Identification Devices were approved by the commission.

They faced two additional charges of abuse of office in which they were accused of improperly using their offices to confer a benefit of Sh1,397,724,925 to Face Technologies for supply of the gadgets without ascertaining if the devices met the technical specifications in the contract.

The two were jointly accused with Mr Karisa and Mr Kamanga of failing to inspect and confirm that the devices supplied by Face Technologies were in good working condition.

They all denied the charges and senior principal magistrate Doreen Mulyeko released them on Sh500,000 cash bail each. The cases will be mentioned on November 14.

In the event that Mr Oswago and Mr Shollei are found guilty of abuse of office, they could be jailed for two years without an option of a fine as provided in the Penal Code.