Report reveals how billions were lost in flawed BVR kit procurement

The French government was locked out in the procurement for Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kit in the 2013 elections, in which procurement rules were flouted.

An auditor-general’s report presented before the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday revealed that the flawed deal, won by the Canadian government, led to a loss of about Sh3.9 billion.

The amount lost through funds mismanagement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) could have been saved had the country gone for a competitive tender, according to the report.

A further Sh1.3 billion was unnecessarily spent by IEBC commissioners to procure 15,000 additional laptops for use in electronic voter registration (Evid).

This is after discounting the advice of IEBC’s ICT director that a similar number of laptops procured for BVR could be configured with 3G technology to serve the same purpose.

On single-sourcing of the BVR project to the Government of Canada, the report indicates that France had expressed interest, through French firm Safran Morpho which bid to supply 9,750 BVR kits at Sh4 billion.

The French firm was reportedly told it was unsuccessful as the Canadian government had already been engaged.

“The First secretary of the Canadian High Commission Mr Tim Colby attended a meeting chaired by the IEBC chairman at a time when the country that was to supply the BVR had not been identified,” said a forensic auditor who appeared before the committee on Tuesday.

The report also implicates former IEBC chief executive officer, Mr James Oswago, who overruled the decisions of two tender and an evaluation and re-evaluation committee, and cancelled the competitive tendering process which had attracted 29 bidders.

The decision resulted to the government-to-government tender, which ended up being more expensive through loan interests and other charges on the Sh6.4 billion the government borrowed from Standard Chartered Bank of London to procure 15,000 BVR kits.

Through the delay in procurement process, the government was forced to purchase 15,000 kits instead at Sh6.4 billion instead of 9,750 kits at Sh4 billion which could have been enough to register Kenyans had the bidding process not been cancelled.

The audit also revealed that Treasury released Sh192 million more than the amount was required for the BVR kits to the IEBC but that the amount was not spent on the election kits, and it is not known how it was spent.

Although the contract was government-to-government, a Canadian parastatal, Canadian Commercial Corporation and the Export Development Corporation were in charge of negotiating for the loan on behalf of Kenya government, from a UK bank.

The additional costs on the loan which included bank interests at Sh1.6 billion, and Sh909 million paid as loan insurance premium, to the Canadian firm Export Development Corporation, set back the government over Sh2.5 billion, after the IEBC bungled the competitive bidding process.

O Tuesday, the National Assembly PAC chairman Mr Nicholas Gumbo asked whether IEBC chairman and the nine commissioners were involved in the cancellation of the competitive tendering process, after it emerged it was the former CEO who was mentioned in the report as having taken the decision.

“We need to establish whether the former CEO was acting alone or whether the commission, led by Chairman Mr Isaac Hassan were involved,” he said.

Tongareni MP Dr Eseli Simiyu said all the commissioners had to be accountable since they were part of the decision making team at the commission, and that the former CEO could not have made the decisions on his own.

“These people (commissioners) are paid to do what they do and they are in the office from 8 (am) to 5 (pm) and so they must be answerable,” he said.

Mr Oswago is reported to have formed a second tender committee after the first one resigned over alleged frustration for advising against awarding the BVR tender to Indian firm 4G Identity Solutions of India and Symphony Ltd, and instead recommended due diligence be conducted on the firms.