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Thugge snubs PAC probe on Sh250mn EVID payment

Thugge told the Public Accounts Committee to reschedule the meeting at a date in May saying he will not be available/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 17 – National Treasury Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge on Tuesday snubbed a Parliamentary watchdog team meeting set to deliberate on issues in the report of Auditor-General for the financial year 2014/15.

In a letter dated Monday, Thugge told the Public Accounts Committee to reschedule the meeting at a date in May saying he will not be available.

The Committee Secretariat confirmed that the PS team had on Monday submitted documents that the documents the PS would be relying in making his presentation only for the meeting to abort at the last minute.

Among the issues PAC wants explained are irregular procurement of election materials, overpayment of legal fees and unsupported expenditures.

The MPs are further interested to understand the circumstances which led to the National Treasury to authorise payment of Sh250 million for the supply of additional electronic voter identification devices used in the 2013 General Election.

This follows contradicting evidence by former IEBC CEO James Oswago and chairman Issack Hassan over the procurement of 4,000 additional Electronic Voter Identification Devices at a cost Sh259 million.

Oswago told PAC on Tuesday that Face Technologies supplied to the Commission an additional 4,600 kits instead of the agreed 4,000. He said the company later claimed payment for Sh388.5 million, which he declined to pay.

The CEO told the Committee that the Face Technologies to provide 600 extra kits because they were not offering warranty and they did not have a local service partner in case the machines failed.

Oswago disputed the payment because it included charges that should have included in unit price quoted when tendering for the kits.

According to the invoice submitted by Face Technologies, the amount included Sh110.9 million for maintenance component increase, Sh46.9 million for logistics, Sh43.9 million for VAT and import duty on 4,600 devices that cost Sh168.9 million. It also showed Sh5.8 million for 4,600 hand-held bags and Sh146.6 million for their import duty fee.

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An amount of Sh4.2 million was spent on 5,565 electronic power cables and Sh1.1 million on their import duty fee.

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