Procurement irregularities are likely to be at the heart of investigations into the conduct of the last presidential poll as detectives prepare to move to the IEBC offices at Anniversary Towers.
They include the Sh2.5 billion procurement of ballot papers and statutory forms, ShSh848 million for failed satellite phones as well as acquisition of printing and scanning machines from MFI company.
Procurement director Lawy Aura was kicked out of the commission way before the August 8 poll over the ballot papers fiasco.
Sleuths are also likely to focus on how some KIEMS kits were assigned to Orange and Airtel as their service providers yet the two operators did not have adequate network coverage.
The probe into how IEBC bungled the pollls was ordered by the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko on Saturday
In contract specifications to Dubai-based firm Al Ghurair, the IEBC set security features that must be on Forms 34A, 34B and 34C.
However, tens of critical forms lacked security features in the judicial audit that was ordered by judges.
“Where had the security features, touted by the first respondent, disappeared to? Could these critical documents be still considered genuine? If not, then could they have been forgeries introduced into the vote tabulation process? If so, with what impact to the “numbers”?” the Supreme Court said.
The IEBC director of voter registration Immaculate Kassait said in her affidavit all the forms had the security features.
However, lawyer Paul Mwite later changed the narrative, saying the security features are not mandatory.
If the forms were forgeries, the judges asked, who introduced them into the system and if they were genuine, why were they different from the others?
“We were disturbed by the fact that after an investment of taxpayers’ money running into billions of shillings for the printing of election materials, the Court would be left to ask itself basic fundamental questions regarding the security of voter tabulation forms,” the judges said.