The golden handshake required to send home the nine IEBC commissioners will cost the taxpayer Sh164 million.
The glittering parachute will include unpaid salaries for the year remaining in their contracts, winding up payments, gratuities, existing mortgages and car loans, medical and life insurance, cars and fuel, drivers, bodyguards, telephone service and other perquisites of office.
Attorney General Githu Muigai yesterday told the Star the compensation model will be the framework used when the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission was sent home in 2011. This exit package has not yet been prepared.
Former commission boss PLO Lumumba and four deputy directors departed on August 23, 2011, after Parliament passed a law on the commission.
The IEBC commissioners agreed to depart after the opposition and key segments of society said they had no confidence in their ability to conduct free, fair and transparent elections next year.
They are to leave as soon as new commissioners are appointed by the end of this month.
Yesterday, Parliament passed amendments to the IEBC Act outlining how commissioners can leave office and how new commissioners will be appointed.
"There is nothing on the table yet. We are waiting for the Electoral Laws (Amendment) Bill to be passed and assented to. Then my office, Treasury and IEBC can sit down and come up with an agreement in at most two week," Muigai said.
He added, "We will follow a framework similar to that used when the Lumumba team left office."
Using the Lumumba formula and considering the commissioners' contracts run for another year, the IEBC team are set to leave office in three weeks with millions of shillings.
According to Star calculations, IEBC Chairman Issack Hassan is likely to take home Sh33.1 million, including the Sh12.9 million he would have earned from November this year to November 2017.
Having served five years, he is also entitled to Sh20.1 million gratuity, calculated as 31 per cent of the annual salary for each year served.
IEBC vice chair Lilian Mahiri-Zaja is to receive Sh27.3 million, including Sh10.7 million salary and Sh16.3 million gratuity.
The other seven IEBC commissioners are to take home Sh22.2 million each — Sh8.7 million as forfeited salary and Sh13.4 million gratuity.
The package totals Sh164 million.
The government will spend part of the Sh5 billion Emergency Fund to pay off the commissioners, Treasury secretary Henry Rotich says.
When the Treasury, the AG and IEBC meet, they will consider other issues, such as mortgages and car loans the commissioners may have received as perquisites of office.
In addition, they will also consider the period during which ex-commissioners will continue using government vehicles and bodyguards.
The IEBC chairman is entitled to at least two bodyguards, a government car and driver. The rest each have a car, driver and bodyguard.
In 2011, it was agreed Lumumba's team, affected by the change of the law. would receive money covering the remainder of their terms, as well as gratuity,
They were to receive at least Sh80 million, each but this was revised downward to Sh35 million.
The commissioners had served for only one year and were entitled to salaries for the remaining four years, plus gratuity.
They were also to get a winding up allowance for six months, 46 months' allowance for security guards, allowance to fuel motor vehicles, a paid driver, telephone allowance, medical premiums and annual insurance and cover for life insurance.
It was argued that they had anticipated serving their full term and it was only fair they be compensated.
“From the foregoing, it is clear termination of the employment contract for Director and Assistant directors of KACC was by virtue of change in law, hence, they did not serve their full term," the AG said in an advisory opinion at the time.
He added the compensation was in the interests of justice and fairness for eminent persons who had reasonable expectations of serving full five-year terms.
"They should on an exceptional basis, and reflecting the special circumstances in this case, be accorded the winding up allowance plus such sum or sums as may be negotiated, representing a lump sum compensation for loss of legitimate expectation of employment for the unexpired contract period," the AG said.
Further, the KACC directors were not permitted to be employed in other work or business, hence, there was reasonable expectation that the five year contract would cater for them adequately.
When former KACC director Aaron Ringera was kicked out of office in 2010, he was granted bodyguards, staff and government vehicles for10 years.
On December 18, 2013, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was ordered by the court to pay former KACC deputy director Pravin Bowry Sh35.4 million.
Bowry was removed from KACC, alongside Lumumba, and sued after the government failed to honour the exit package, as advised by the AG.
The court ordered EACC pay Bowry's legal costs.