Are Kenyan Investigative agencies taking notes? Three years after the now famous IEBC Chickengate scandal, Kenyan investigative authorities are yet to bring the suspects behind the scandal to book while in Britain printing firm owner Nicholas Smith, found guilty in 2015 of bribing Kenyan bureaucrats and tenderpreneurs to win multimillion-shilling contracts, has finally walked out of prison after completing a three-year sentence.
Mr Smith, convicted of giving millions of shillings in kickbacks to officials at the then Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) and the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) in order to win tenders for ballot and exam papers, respectively, became the poster boy for the “Chickengate” scandal that tainted electoral management practices — and the careers of officials — in the country.
The scandal was named Chickengate because, in many of the printing contracts negotiations, the kickbacks were referred to in e-mail exchanges as “chicken”
Besides serving his three-year term, the Briton paid £93,693 (Sh12 million) in fines and legal bills.
Meanwhile, Kenyan authorities are still struggling to pursue criminal charges against three individuals that the Briton allegedly paid bribes to.aH
It was not clear whether UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which unearthed the scandal, had given the incriminating evidence to Kenyan officials. An SFO official said that it does not track the status of convicted defendants.
“I will speak to the case team about whether any documents were provided to the Kenyan authorities,” said the source. “However, due to the age of the case, I may not be able to assist.”