Standard Media Group has taken down a piece revealing how the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) lost Sh.1 billion in the procurement of election materials.
The article, on this link and titled “Massive Irregularities: Audit shows how IEBC lost a billion” was published on July 5, 2018.
According to the article, an internal audit report as filed in court by Chairman Wafula Chebukati explaining why he sent the commission’s CEO, Ezra Chebukati on a three month compulsory leave showed that there were inflated costs during the procurement of October 2017 repeat presidential election materials.
Under review, Chebukati said, were six tenders which included: BVR Infrastructure Security Monitoring Solution, provision of the Oracle database and security solution, provision of KIEMS, integrated media campaign consultancy, commissioning of a network for result transmission and the supply and delivery of storage expansion for the converged infrastructure tender.
The report indicated that the KIEMS kits tender was inflated by a whooping Sh.811 million, when it should have been in fact cheaper.
Chiloba is also accused of having ordered for 1,553 devices in the supply and delivery, installation, implementation and commissioning of the network for result transmission tender, when the supplier had already noted that they could only deliver 1,000 devices.
The commission in this case lost at least Sh.273 million, a bill that is yet to be paid in full.
The audit report also reveals that the Sh.435 million BVR kits was irregularly done.
Chebukati filed the report to show reason why the commission suspended Chiloba again even after a court order allowing him back in.
He told the court that he decided against the embattled CEO’s reinstatement seeing as he is implicated in the irregular procurement of materials.
“Since he is the CEO and various issues have emerged surrounding key procurement in last year’s election, we found it necessary to suspend him pending completion of investigations,” said Chebukati.
In an urgent application filed in court on June 22, Chiloba sought to have the chairman, commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu held in contempt of court after locking him out of his office.
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“The commissioners and chairman’s actions, conduct, endeavours of sending the applicant on further purported suspension in effect removes him from his employment and are without any basis in law, malicious, high-handed, capricious and calculated to injure him,” his petition read in part.
He also stated that the aforementioned commissioners suspended him in order to create the impression that he was the the sole subject of an ongoing audit.
The truth, he said, was that the entire institution was going through an external audit.
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