IEBC boss Issack Hassan denies team’s role in tender
IEBC chairman Issack Hassan. Officials who presided over the 2013 General Election are not yet out of the woods as the Parliamentary Accounts Committee of the National Assembly prepares to table a damning report on them. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP.
What you need to know:
- The National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee has been questioning the commissioners at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi over a special audit.
- They were asked to explain their involvement in the procurement of the contested Biometric Voter Registration kits, Electronic Voter Identification Devices and the electronic transmission equipment.
MPs have accused electoral commission chairman Issack Hassan and eight commissioners of interfering with the procurement of electoral equipment worth billions of shillings.
The lawmakers on Tuesday said the commissioners were unlawfully involved in the tendering of equipment worth over Sh2 billion and the selection of the supplier ahead of the last elections.
Mr Hassan however defended the commissioners, saying they only played an oversight role and were not involved in the tendering.
The MPs cited several instances they said the commissioners had been engaged in the procurement of various equipment despite not being permitted by the law on public procurement and as well as the laws of the electoral commission.
The National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee has been questioning the commissioners at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi over a special audit that questioned key decisions made by electoral commissions before the last polls.
They questioned Mr Hassan, vice-chairperson Lillian Mahiri-Zaja and Mr Mohamed Alawi, a commissioner.
They were asked to explain their involvement in the procurement of the contested Biometric Voter Registration kits, Electronic Voter Identification Devices and the electronic transmission equipment, which failed in the 2013 General Election.
Committee chairman Nicholas Gumbo said changing the number of voter identification kits to be supplied from 30,000 to 34,000, which the commissioners asked the secretariat to consider, amounted to tender variation and interference.
