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Audit of voter register on schedule, to end May 10

“Every single name in the register of voters will be verified against the appropriate third party data as required in the constitution as well as biometric data,” Mwaura said Thursday/KPMG

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 13 – Auditing of the voter register which will be used in the August Election is on track and will be complete by May 10.

Josphat Mwaura, the Chief Executive Officer of KPMG East Africa, the firm contracted to audit the register, said the process of cleaning up the voter register compiled by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which begun on March 31 will ensure all details are verified in order to clean up the voter scroll ahead of the August vote.

“Every single name in the register of voters will be verified against the appropriate third party data as required in the constitution as well as biometric data,” Mwaura said Thursday.

“In terms of purpose, we’re talking about securing the severing power of the people of Kenya and in terms of objectives we’re verifying accuracy and report on mechanisms to enhance accuracy and update the register,” he pointed out.

According to Mwaura, KPMG will conduct an internal analysis to identify duplicate entries through an audit of registration documents to confirm their validity and whether they were acquired legally.

The audit firm said it will recommend de-registration of voters who are found to have acquired identification documents before reaching the mandatory age of 18.

“We will carry out an internal analysis to identify any duplicates or any data we consider orphan by virtue of having missing details and confirm that the details are required are on the register,” he said.

According to Mwaura, the firm will particularly focus on cross-referencing the register to the national population and citizen data to ensure that information contained in the voter register in sync with records available at the Directorate of Immigration and Registration of Persons.

Mwaura said that the firm had written to the directorate thorough IEBC to obtain information on the register of passports, identity cards, births, deaths, the national housing population census (2009) and current population projections.

KPMG’s head of Information Technology Advisory Services Gerald Kasimu also disclosed that the audit process will involve inspection of the voter transfers conducted by IEBC as well as checking the electoral body’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems to ensure that they are tamper-proof.

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“We need to understand how the well the infrastructure that hosts the register of voters is controlled and how well any maintenance to the servers is controlled,” Kasimu said.

“We need to understand who has access to the system that hosts the register, what they can do in the system and if that is authorized in accordance with procedure and policies of the commission,” he explained adding that the firm will seek to ascertain that the external or unauthorized persons cannot get access to and tamper with the register.

Also under scrutiny is gender and geographical (regional) inclusivity to ensure that the population projections are proportionate to the number of voters registered for purposes of addressing inequalities.

Once seized of the audit report, the IEBC is required by law to present it to the National Assembly within 14 days and trigger the implementation of recommendations thereof within 30 days.

An Election preparedness schedule provided earlier in the year shows that IEBC is expected to verify the register between May 10 and June 9 before availing it to voters for perusal ahead of polls.

In law, the commission needs to have the voters’ roll verified 90 days to the election date.

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