UK court exposes corruption ring at Kenya poll agency
From left: IEBC chairman Issack Hassan, suspended IEBC chief executive James Oswago and Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir. FILE PHOTOS | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Court documents show that the Kenyan taxpayer paid dearly for the illicit dealings.
- The corrupt payments were built into S&O’s pricing of the printed materials so that the inflation in the price as a result of that corruption was passed onto those funding the institutions that contracted with S&O.
Kenya’s election officials pocketed millions of shillings in bribes to award lucrative printing contracts to a UK company over a two-year period, prosecution documents filed in a London court show.
In a legal battle that has left in its wake one of the best-documented cases of an international corruption network in Kenya’s history, the UK prosecutors have filed in court loads of written evidence implicating senior election officials in the corruption ring, including Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Issack Hassan.
Court documents show that the Kenyan taxpayer paid dearly for the illicit dealings between senior Smith & Ouzman (S&O) officials and the senior managers and commissioners in the defunct Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC), putting to shame Kenyan prosecutors and the anti-corruption agency officials who have yet to nail anyone for the offences.
“The scale of the corruption alleged by the prosecution is worth £349,057.39 (Sh50 million) in Kenya,” prosecutor Mark Bryant-Heron says in court filings.
For many of the printing contracts, costs were inflated by up to 38 per cent mainly to cater for the kickbacks — commonly referred to in the mail as "chicken" — to senior election officials, the UK prosecutors say.
The prosecutors say “the corrupt payments were built into S&O’s pricing of the printed materials so that the inflation in the price as a result of that corruption was passed onto those funding the institutions that contracted with S&O”.
Forensic investigations by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) show that top officials at the IIEC, the predecessor of IEBC, variously asked for bribes, code-named "chicken", to facilitate S&O’s winning of seven tenders to supply election materials such as ballot papers, voter registration forms, voter ID cards and nomination forms.
Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir, who worked as a senior manager at the IIEC, tops the list of senior government officials named in the corruption racket.
The list includes suspended IEBC chief executive James Oswago, former Judiciary registrar Gladys Boss Shollei (deputy CEO), lawyer Kennedy Nyaundi (commissioner), Kenneth Karani (senior procurement officer) and the finance director.
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