The 92,277 dead voters according to the KPMG report handed to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Friday are in the list of 621,832 deceased persons provided by the Civil Registration Department (CRS) for the period between 2012 and 2016/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 10 – Audit firm KPMG has recommended the removal of over 90,000 dead voters from the register before the August elections.
The 92,277 dead voters according to the KPMG report handed to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Friday are in the list of 621,832 deceased persons provided by the Civil Registration Department (CRS) for the period between 2012 and 2016.
According to KPMG, there are about 2,390,054 estimated deaths between the four years but only 970,895 were captured by the CRS.
“We’ve identified that 92,277 of the records in the IEBC register have exact details matching with the records of deaths we obtained from the CRS. The work of the IEBC is therefore simple, it is to go and expunge them off the register,” KPMG’s head of Information Technology Advisory Services Gerald Kasimu said.
The KPMG audit further reveals that 11,104 deceased voters have been expunged from the register since 2012. However, since 2013, only 30 records have been removed from the voters roll.
“One has got to be extremely careful in determining who is the real person who is deceased because there’s a likelihood of striking someone off the register on the basis of a report that was made about a relative who had passed on,” Kasimu said urging the registrar to ensure the integrity of the information kept by the department is watertight with measure being put in place to ensure deaths do not go unreported.
Kasimu noted that 17,523 records in the voters list were backed up by invalid passport references, the law requiring that the travel document must be valid at the time of voting for it to be admissible.
Some 171,476 records in the register were found to be invalid when identification numbers were crosschecked with the National Registration Bureau.
Another 264,242 listed voters were found to be with duplicate, missing or invalid registration documents (National Identity Cards of Passports).
Another 2,610 individuals registered using the identity cards and passports at the same time.
Of the 19,647,835 voters registered by the commission as at the end of the second Mass Voter Registration, 1,037,260 are feared to be dead.
The month-long audit also established that 5,427 records of voters in the register do not have biometric fingerprint records.
The records with missing biometric data gave rise to fears of the use of a manual back up in the August 8 elections, a situation that has attracted a lot of controversy. However there was an assurance that due diligence will be followed in the event that a need arises for the use of a manual backup.
The report also established that 12,640 records in the register had gender or date of births differing with what was captured in the IDs as, 33 records whose entry was passports also having the same tendency.
This could however be attributed to errors made by clerks during the entry of the data, something that could be corrected during the voter verification process which was ending Friday – June 9.
In total, there were 2,900,089 records in the register with inconsistencies ranging from date of birth, gender, names and other permutation of particulars.
KPMG Chief Executive Officer Josphat Mwaura called upon the IEBC to also address other key concerns including education voters who used passports that may be invalid by August 8.
“There’s need for clarification on the use of expired passports. If you used a passport to register and the passport expires buy August 8, as matter stand now you will not be able to vote. Holders of such passports need to be informed so that they can do whatever is necessary to renew them promptly,” Mwaura said.
The commission’s chief executive Ezra Chiloba said the report will be forwarded to the National Assembly within 14 days as provided for in law with the implementation of recommendations of the report already underway.
Commission Chairperson Wafula said an exercise of cleaning up the register was ongoing with the staff having been divided into two shifts – day and night – to ensure the register is cleaned up.
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