Poll officials on the spot in UK graft case

An Interim Independent Electoral Commission’s official loads ballot boxes and other voting materials onto a vehicle at Tac Centre in Eldoret East Constituency on August 3, 2010. A UK court has been told that IIEC top officials were paid bribes to award the tender for the ballot papers to Smith & Ouzman, a UK company. FILE PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA |

What you need to know:

  • The documents show tendering at the IIEC was a big joke.
  • The court filings say that the company paid out up to Sh50 million to top election officials.

A British company paid the travel and hotel bills for top electoral commission officials as it sought to influence them into awarding it tenders for printing election material for the 2010 referendum, court documents filed in London show.

UK prosecutors have said that the firm, Smith & Ouzman, paid for the four-day tour to the UK by Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) chairman Issack Hassan, Chief Executive Officer James Oswago, head of legal services Praxedes Tororey, commissioner Ken Nyaundi and one other person only identified as Sang, including booking their hotel accommodation barely a month before the referendum.

Hotel costs amounting to Sh421,400 were later deducted from “the bribes eventually paid out to the officials”, the prosecutor said in their filing.

“The election bosses were in the UK to assess the firm’s capacity to print election materials,” according to the documents.

Smith & Ouzman is accused of paying a series of bribes, disguised as commissions, to the election officials.

The payments were made through the company’s agent in Nairobi, identified in the court documents as Trevy James Oyombra.

In email communications between Mr Oyombra and Smith &Ouzman bosses in London, the commission is variously referred to as “chicken” or “comm” or “comm+O” to indicate the official to whom the “commission was paid”.

Allegations relate to 2009 and 2010 and show how the “commissions”, on average 30 per cent of the contract sum, inflated the cost of elections.

The company and its top managers have also been accused of bribing officials of public institutions in three other African countries besides Kenya.

According to the documents, the senior managers also influenced public officials in Ghana, Mauritania and Somalia, paying them millions of shillings to win tenders for printing materials.

Through their action, the documents say, the managers and the company skewed the award of competitive tenders in their favour.

A BIG JOKE

The documents show tendering at the IIEC was a big joke, with the process so cooked up that Smith & Ouzman was given the competing bids and told in advance what excuses would be used to disqualify them.

The court filings say that the company paid out up to Sh50 million to top election officials to win tenders for the supply of election materials for four by-elections — in Shinyalu, South Mugirango, Bomachoge and Matuga — and for the 2010 referendum.

Other major players in the shocking corruption ring include Mr Davis Chirchir, who at the time was a senior manager at the IIEC, the commission’s former deputy CEO, Mrs Gladys Boss Shollei, and a senior procurement officer at the elections body, Mr Kenneth Karani.

Forensic investigations by UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) reveal that in total, S&O received 10 payments worth Sh192 million from IIEC between September 2009 and December 2010.

“From that sum S&O retained £980,834. £380,859 was paid to Trevy’s bank account,” the filings show.

Of that sum, the prosecution said that it was agreed between the defendants and Mr Oyombra that £337,993 was to be paid out as bribes to the IIEC officials to secure future contracts.

'WAITING TO BE SERVED'

The filings say: “On 18th August, 28th September, and 8th December 2010, S&O received payments for this contract (the exhibit number is given). The receipt of the first payment prompted an email enquiry on 24/8/10 from Trevy to Nicholas Smith (the exhibit number is given): “'let me know once you send the commission for the referendum. These guys are already on the table waiting to be served'.”

In interviews with the prosecution, Mr Nicholas Smith said he did not know what Trevy was referring to when he said “these guys are already on the table waiting to be served”.

He denied that it was a reference to onward payment to officials.

The documents also detail how tender documents for the various by-elections were speeded up by IIEC officials and sent to the British firm to facilitate the quick release of kickbacks.

“On the 16th June 2009, Nicholas Smith wrote to the IIEC chairman, Ahmed Issack Hassan. The letter referred to a meeting between S&O and Hassan at IIEC’s offices in Nairobi and quotes for printing voter registration forms, voter ID cards and ballot papers for the urgent Shinyalu and Bomachoge by-election.

“The price quoted was £32,526. The 200,000 voter ID cards and 20,000 voter registration forms were quickly produced by S&O and delivered on 27/6/09,” the documents show.

“There remained the ballot papers to produce and ship. The S&O invoice makes clear that they were delivered on 18/8/09.”

Between the first and second shipments, email discussions had taken place between Mr Nicholas Smith and Mr Oyombra about payment of commission to Trevy “and the necessity to pay the senior procurement officer at the IIEC, Kenneth Karani and other officials.”