The National Assembly Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday tabled its report on the past 2017 general elections. 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.
“It also emerged that the other commissioners demonstrated conflicts of interest in relation to procurement of the KIEMS kits where the commissioners voted in favour of their preferred suppliers.”
The legislators found IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati to have violated the Leadership Integrity Act by allocating cases to a law firm without prior disclosure that he was its founding member.
The team said the continued existence of the commission as “currently constituted is untenable, even for one extra day”. Members proposed that Parliament spearhead reforms to pave the way for its fresh constitution.
“The commissioners, the chief executive officer and the directors involved in the unlawful procurement should vacate office immediately upon adoption of this report to allow for the much-needed reforms to be effected to restore public confidence in the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission,” the report says.
“Parliament must provide leadership by developing a clear roadmap to midwife a seamless transition from the current order of management of elections to a totally new order.”
Maina, Mwachanya and Kurgat resigned in April last year over what they termed irreconcilable differences with Chebukati.
Acting CEO Marjan Hussein, who served as Chiloba’s deputy, former legal services director Praxedes Tororey and ICT director James Muhati have also been indicted.
The report found Chiloba guilty of poor planning of procurement processes, withholding crucial information from the commissioners, failing to demand procurement bonds before signing contracts and purchasing Sh127.6 million extra data bundles, which were never used.
“For instance, he awarded a contract for BVR IBM server infrastructure maintenance and KIEMS infrastructure security monitoring solutions through direct procurement at a cost of Sh452 million, which was eventually not utilised during the 2017 General Election.”