They do say that what goes around, comes around. Has anyone forgotten how electoral commission’s chairman Wafula Chebukati plotted the sacking of the Commission’s CEO Ezra Chiloba? Well, this might still be haunting him! MPs now want the IEBC chairman and the remaining commissioners kicked out of office over loss of funds in questionable tenders.
A report by the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee details how the poll officials aided the alleged loss and recommends the prosecution of the commissioners and sacked CEO Ezra Chiloba.
This, according to the report, should be the first step in dealing decisively with the rot that has become of the electoral agency.
The committee blames six commissioners for the loss — Chebukati, Consolata Maina, Margaret Mwachanya, Boya Molu, Abdi Guliye and Paul Kurgat. Only former commissioner Roselyn Akombe is left out. She resigned before the repeat presidential election on October 26, 2017, saying the exercise could not even pass basic credibility test.
PAC has been holding hearings with former and current IEBC officials and suppliers for two months. This followed a special report by Auditor General Edward Ouko that identified possible loss of billions in tender games before and during the polls.
PAC tabled its report yesterday. It paints a grim picture of the election. The lawmakers say the polls were marred by interests of a team that turned into speculators and wheeler-dealers, making it even impossible to ascertain the size of cash lost in the tenders.
The committee wants DCI chief George Kinoti and the EACC to launch investigations and have charges preferred on the culpable.
“The relevant investigative agencies should move with dispatch, pick up from where we’ve left and undertake thorough investigations with a view to prosecuting all individuals found culpable, indiscriminately.”
It says that from the analysis of the evidence placed before it, “the true cost of the August 2017 General Election and the repeat October 2017 presidential election may never be known.”
“It was all blame game. The picture that emerged was that of an IEBC that was held hostage by incessant battles of supremacy between the chairman and the chief executive officer,” chairman Opiyo Wandayi (Ugunja) said in the report.
The report accuses the commissioners of failing to provide oversight, occasioning the loss in highly inflated cost of poll materials. Instead of oversighting the secretariat, they focussed on bidding and pushing for friendly companies to win lucrative tenders, it says.