Three officials are accused of ‘exerting undue influence and pressure’ in awarding the tender to one company, costing almost twice the initial price
The National Assembly Justice and Legal Affairs Committee today is to grill electoral commissioners allegedly linked to irregular procurement of failed 2013 election material.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issack Hassan and commissioners Mohamed Alawi and Thomas Letangule have been told to clear their names with the committee.
They are accused of “exerting undue influence and pressure” in awarding the biometric voter registration tender.
The meeting was called last Monday after the commission’s CEO Ezra Chiloba, vice chair Lilian Mahiri-Zaja and some junior officials were sent away by the committee.
Committee chairman Samuel Chepkonga (Ainabkoi MP) said they want all the nine commissioners to present themselves.
“You cannot take this committee seeking to discuss serious issues in a casual manner the way you have come,” Chepkonga warned IEBC officials.
Face Technologies was awarded a contract in November 2012 to supply, deliver, instal, configure, train, test, and commission 30,000 handheld electronic voter identification devices.
The commission was to issue a letter of credit by December 5, 2012, to allow Face Technology to proceed with the order.
On January 16, 2013, Face Technology formally wrote to the IEBC proposing what they called “an emergency option to ensure that the integrity of the electronic process for March 4, 2013, is protected”.
The emergency option referred to by Face Technology was the supply of a portable laptop solution as a substitute for the handheld EVID devices, though with the same functionality.
On January 26, 2013, the commission approved the recommendation to supply of 34,000 devices.
The rationale for 34,000 kits was to ensure that all the 33,000 polling stations were fully catered for, with the balance for any emergency.
Initially, the commission had planned for 30,000 polling stations. However, the number of polling stations was increased to 33,000.
Face Technology invoiced the commission $4,628,746 (Sh465.75 million) to supply of 4,600 handheld devices.
Each device would cost $1,006 (Sh101,226 ), almost twice the contractual unit price of $555 (Sh55,845 ).
According to the supplier, the additional costs arose from increased cost for material components, logistics and transport owing to the Chinese New Year.
Between December 2014 and January 2015, the commission requested the National Treasury to allocate funds to enable it settle the Evid bill.
The Treasury approved additional funding of Sh388,562,633 for payment to Face Technology.
The Auditor General said “the decision to pay or not must be in accordance with the contractual arrangements and delivery of equipment as certified by Kenya Bureau of Standards.”
(+) probe commissioners
In audit report, the Public Accounts Committee recommended the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission investigate chairman Issack Hassan and commissioners Mohamed Alawi and Thomas Letangule over the BVR kits. The report established that the three commissioners influenced the awarding of the BVR tender to Face Technologies instead of 4G Identity Solutions. “The committee finds that the procurement was not guided by a plan, or that the plan was inadequate, or both,” the PAC 2014 report states. It said the timing of procurement of devices was so tight, indicating that the process was “deliberately designed to fail”, despite Treasury allocating Sh12 billion.