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The Courts recommendation was based on the affidavit filed by Dismas Ong’ondi, the Director of Information and Technology at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission/FILE

Kenya

Supreme Court recommends action on IEBC tender team

The Courts recommendation was based on the affidavit filed by Dismas Ong’ondi, the Director of Information and Technology at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission/FILE

The Courts recommendation was based on the affidavit filed by Dismas Ong’ondi, the Director of Information and Technology at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 16 – The Supreme Court has recommended further investigations and possible prosecution of the IEBC tender committee members who participated in the procurement of faulty technologies used in the General Election.

In its detailed judgment, the judges ruled that it was likely that the procurement process was marred by competing interests involving impropriety and possible criminality.

The Courts recommendation was based on the affidavit filed by Dismas Ong’ondi, the Director of Information and Technology at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

According to Ong’ondi the failure was occasioned by wrangles among IEBC members during the procurement process.

Ong’ondi submitted that the squabbles occasioned the failure by the commission to assess the integrity of the technologies in good time.

The verdict read: “Different reasons explain this failure but, by the depositions of Dismas Ong’ondi, the failure mainly arose from the misunderstandings and squabbles among IEBC members during the procurement process.”

“It is, indeed, likely that the acquisition process was marked by competing interests involving impropriety, or even criminality: and we recommend that this matter be entrusted to the relevant State agency, for further investigation and possible prosecution of suspects,” further read the ruling.

IEBC suffered on the voting day as its Electronic Voter Identification Devices and the Result Transmission System failed to optimally work as expected.

IEBC chairman Issack Hassan last week confirmed that some of the technologies deployed were not tested prior to the Election Day.

In July 2012 IEBC’s tender committee EBC tender committee quit following weeks of bickering between the some IEBC commissioners against its secretariat in tussle over which firm was the most suitable to be awarded the tender.

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The tender committee that resigned had recommended that third ranked Face Technologies be awarded the tender even after quoting Sh4.78 billion, Sh810.7 million above the commission’s budget.

Later in August government-to-government agreement between Kenya and Canada was reached for the supply of the Biometric Voter Registration kits

While in Court IEBC admitted the failure but insisted that the technology worked well in a majority of the polling stations, alongside the manual process.

The Commission said that the RTS, as a check-and-control mechanism, worked considerably well, as 45.9 percent of the polling stations did transmit results for the Presidential election.

The EVID system otherwise known as poll books was procured through a tender that called for supply, delivery, installation, configuration, training, testing and Commissioning of the kits that was closed July 5, 2012.

The IEBC which awarded the tender to Face Technology of South Africa called for a portable handheld device to biometrically identify voters using biometric data collected during the registration period.

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