Poll calendar test as IEBC stopped from awarding new technology tender

Preparations for next year’s general election have run into serious headwinds after the electoral agency was stopped from procuring new technology to manage the polls.

The Nation learnt the decision by the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) stopping the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) from awarding a tender for the supply of new Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System (Kiems) was communicated to the electoral agency on Wednesday.

The IEBC in April issued an international tender for a system that would support voter registration, voter identification, results transmission, candidates’ registration and virtually run every aspect of the next elections scheduled for August next year.

The new system was to replace the current one, which was developed in 2012 by French firm Idemia, formerly OT-Morpho, which has been IEBC’s sole supplier since the adoption of information and communication technology to run Kenya’s electoral process.

The PPARB told the IEBC to put the process of replacing Idemia on hold and refrain from signing a contract with any of the companies that had placed bids pending the hearing and determination of an appeal before the board. 

“You are hereby notified that on August 11, 2021, a request for a review was filed at the PPRAB in respect of the above-mentioned tender,” a letter sent to IEBC by the review board’s acting secretary Philip Okumu reads in part.

“Under Section 168 of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act of 2015, the proceedings are hereby suspended and no contract shall be signed between the procurer and the tenderer awarded the contract unless the appeal has been finalised,” PPRAB ordered.

The electoral agency has been under pressure to drop Idemia after the mass failure of its KIEMS kits on election day in 2017.

Procurement of new system

ODM leader Raila Odinga, accused the company of complicity in alleged rigging of the election.
The IEBC is fighting another case in court, filed by activist Okiyah Omtatah, seeking to stop the procurement of ballot papers.

According to the activist, there is a plan to award De La Rue Kenya and EPZ Ltd the contract by skirting around a competitive procurement process as required by law.

In the suit filed at the PPARB, one of the bidders accuses IEBC of structuring the tender in such a way that local contractors do not stand a chance at all. Risk Africa Inovatis Ltd, a Kenyan company, says IEBC has violated several procurement laws.

“In violation of Section 155 (9) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, the tender document does not require foreign entities participating in the tender to source at least 40 per cent of their supplies from citizen contractors prior to submitting the tender,” says Risk Africa.

“The applicant and several other citizens and or local contractors risk losing their competitive advantage guaranteed n law in the evaluation and award of bids in respect of this tender in breach of their legitimate expectations,” adds the company.

The procurement of a new system, though deemed expensive by IEBC’s commissioners considering the agency spent Sh6 billion on the 2017 kits, is part of efforts by the commission to right the wrongs it committed in the last polls.

In March 2017, five months to the elections, IEBC single-sourced OT Morpho, later claiming it had run out of time to follow the stipulated procurement process.

The decision boomeranged when the Kiems kits failed to work, leading to the sacking of then commission’s CEO Ezra Chiloba.

Mass voter registration

In previous interviews, IEBC commissioners have indicated the server that hosts the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system has reached its capacity and cannot accommodate new voters. 

The BVR system has a capacity of just 20 million voters.

Apart from upgrading the system, IEBC needs 55,000 tablets for next year’s elections, to cater for approximately 53,000 polling stations and for back-up as and when needed. 

Additionally, the winner of the tender will need time to transfer data from the current system to the new one.

"The backend system should be able to process at least 53,000 concurrent sessions. The system should have the ability to remotely configure, update, monitor, disable and wipe the RTS application software or settings on the tablet. The systems shall be able to display the transmitted results from approximately 53,000 polling stations," IEBC said in tender documents issued in April.

The commission rolled out the first phase of mass voter registration on August 2, which will run until August 16. The commission will also carry out a second registration from December 6 to December 20.

The commission is also supposed to hire a firm to audit the voter register in October. 

A report is then supposed to be tabled in Parliament for approval and further recommendations.

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