Panic hits IEBC bosses over probe, consider quitting

Panic has gripped the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission following multiple initiatives to force out commissioners and the secretariat.

Senior staff of the commission have in the past three days been holed up in strategy meetings to consider their options, as pressure mounts from both outside and within Parliament for them to leave and give way for formation of a new team.

Both CORD and Jubilee have agreed to establish a joint committee to steer the electoral agency reforms. The two coalitions have established a 14-member joint select committee to investigate the electoral commissioners.
The select committee will draft a report to be tabled in Parliament within 30 days.
At the same time there is a damning report to table in Parliament within 30 days.

At the same time there is a damning report implicating them in procurement malpractices in the run up to the 2013 polls before the National Assembly Public Accounts committee (PAC). The commission was forced to write to PAC on the contents and recommendations of the report before they are given a fair hearing.

Other members of the secretariat are even considering quitting ahead of debate and the adoption of the report that as far reaching recommendations, including barring Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba from holding public office.

According to the report some commissioners are said to have received kickbacks in return for the award of tenders to supply election equipment. The CEO is indicted over payment of Sh258 million in extra claims to Face Technologies Limited without a valid contact for the supply of the equipment.

“We did a letter to the committee registering our displeasure with the inconsistencies cited in the report. If adopted the way it is, it will far reaching implications on the character of some of the commissioners and members of the secretariat,” a senior member of the commission told The Standard.

 Way forward

“As a result of the ongoing issues, there is panic and anxiety within the commission and the secretariat on the way forward. However, no firm decision has been made yet on the action to be taken, but anything is possible if the House decides to adopt the report in its current form,” he said.

The chair of Public Accounts committee, Nicholas Gumbo confirmed that the commission had strongly objected to some of the recommendations, especially one on conducting a lifestyle audit on the commissioners and members of the tender committee to establish their source of wealth.

“What they are uncomfortable with most is the lifestyle audit. But as a committee, we spoke to many sources which we are under obligation to protect. The sources confirmed to us that some of the commissioners had grown rich within a very short time. If there is any indication that public money has been used to enrich some people, then we cannot ignore it. It is not a witch hunt, it is based on evidence,” said Gumbo.

“The fact that some people in IEBC are unhappy with the report does not change anything. The Constitution is clear that public officers must be accountable,” said Gumbo.

The letter to PAC reads in part: “The report of PAC is taken, at its best, ‘a bill of attainder’ designed to summarily guillotine officials of the commission through contrived and concocted information with the intention of achieving other ends...We have our own personal stories to tell about the entire audit process. We urge the committee and the plenary of the National Assembly to be objective and at the very least consider factual and provable elements and no more. We owe it to posterity.”

“The commissioners have written individual letters to the President indicating their willingness to leave office. They argue that they no longer want to drag their names in mud,” said a well-placed source in the commission.

“The letters have not been shared by any one within the commission,” the source added.

The developments came even as the National Assembly justice and Legal Affairs sitting jointly with the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee began considering a petition for the removal of the commissioners and the secretariat.

The petitioner, a former consultant for the commission, claimed before the committee that he had evidence to show that a senior commissioner influenced the payment of the money approved by the CEO. He also said that the lending of Biometric Voter kits to Burundi early in the year was done without the approval of the entire commission.

“One of the senior IEBC officials influenced the payment. Collectively, the commission refused to lend the equipment,” Baraza Nyukuri who has previously acted as a consultant for the commission said.

The Chair of the Justice Committee, Samuel Chepkonga termed the petition as more substantial than a previous one filed by activist Wafula Buke.

“The petition is better than the one we had previously. This one appears to have evidence. I like the fact that you have put met on the petition in disclosing the grounds for removal,”? Chepkonga told the petitioner.

“The petitioner has put a lot of seriousness unlike other petition we have seen before,” said Moses Cheboi (Kuresoi North).

Peter Kaluma (Homa Bay) said that there is no way commissioners can be removed while the secretariat remains intact.

“You remember the chicken gate scandal. Apart from chairman Issack Hassan, the others mentioned are members of the Secretariat. There is a big problem with this secretariat and it cannot remain the way it is and deliver to Kenyans a credible election,” he said.

Last week National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi gave the go-ahead for debate on PAC, which partly relied on recommendations of a report of the Auditor General.