A former electoral commission boss was Wednesday arrested and charged in court with corruption.
Former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chief Executive Officer James Oswago and two other officials were charged in connection with the Chickengate scandal.
Mr Oswago was charged alongside procurement officer, Hamida Ali Kibwana, and broker Trevy Oyombra who is an agent of Smith and Ouzman Ltd, a British firm whose directors were convicted in a UK court for paying bribes to Kenyan officials.
They denied several counts of soliciting for benefit and failure to comply with procurement laws before Chief Magistrate Lawrence Mugambi.
Mr Oyombra faced nine counts of soliciting and receiving money from Ouzman Company in order to induce IEBC to award it contracts for printing voter identification forms, printing and supply of assorted electoral materials.
Oswago was charged with receiving Sh2 million from Mr Kibwana as an inducement to have IEBC award the printing of OMR corrections forms contract to Smith and Ouzman Ltd.
Kibwana was also charged with another count of receiving Sh2.2 million from Oyombra on behalf of Oswago in order to induce IEBC to award a contract for the printing of OMR correction forms to Smith And Ouzman Company.
Oswago and Kibwana were released on Sh600,000 cash bail while Oyombra was released on a cash bail of Sh1 million, because of the many charges he faces.
Plea rejected
Oswago’s plea to have the court release him on personal bond was rejected by the Prosecution who argued that the offense he faces is a serious one.
His lawyer, Ian Maina, had complained that the prosecution was unfair to Oswago since he faced similar counts in other cases.
They are accused of corruption in printing contracts for materials for the 2013 General Election where prices were inflated by huge amounts for kick backs. The case will be mentioned on March 1, 2017.
UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in January 2016 handed the Attorney General documents on how Smith And Ouzman officials bribed Kenyan officials.
The dossier included the data used by the UK authorities to jail and fine directors of the printing firm for paying out bribes, code-named chicken, totaling Sh59 million to electoral and examination officials.
The data used to crack the case was retrieved from email exchanges between the printers and the Kenyan officials, shipping invoices and local purchase orders used in procurement to demonstrate their case.
The three were arrested in their Nairobi homes by EACC officials at 5am Wednesday. Oswago was picked from his Fedha estate, Oyombra from Five Star estate in South C and Kibwana from Venom estate along Langata Road.
As he was being taken out of EACC offices at Integrity Centre, Oswago told journalists that there had been no investigations into the reported scandal.
“There is no investigations here. Chickengate cannot be one person,” shouted Oswago as he was being taken to court.
EACC spokesman Yassin Amaro said the case relates to procurement of electoral materials and equipment.
“There were allegations that senior IEBC officials solicited and received bribes to influence the award tender to Smith and Ouzman, UK-based company,” said Mr Amaro.
He said investigations had shown that IEBC demanded bribes to influence the award of Shinyalu and Bomachoge by-election ballot papers printing contract, 2009-2010 voter ID forms, hot steal electors card pouches, South Mugirango and Matuga parliamentary and civic by-election ballot papers and the 2010 referendum ballot papers.
Amaro said there were irregularities and illegalities in the procurement of the election materials contrary to the Procurement and Disposal Act.
