Electoral commission officials and vendors of electronic systems used in the March 4 General Election may face criminal prosecution after the Supreme Court recommended they be investigated over the failure of the gadgets. 

In its full judgment of presidential election petitions released Tuesday the six judges said there were squabbles among Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officials over the procurement leading to the failure of the electronic voter identification devices (EVID) and Result Transmission System (RTS).

“We recommend that this matter be entrusted to the relevant State agency for further investigation and possible prosecution of suspects,” the six judges led by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, the Supreme Court President, said.

Failure of the devices was at the heart of the petitions challenging the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as Kenya’s fourth president filed by Raila Odinga, who emerged second in the election, and Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog).

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The judges said the electronic system procurement was marked by competing interests some involving impropriety or even criminality. 

“Different reasons explain this failure but, by the depositions of Dismus Ong’ondi, the failure mainly arose from the misunderstandings and squabbles among IEBC members during the procurement process,” said the judges. 

The court said enough evidence was produced to show that EVID and RTS stalled and crashed.

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With the recommendation of investigation and prosecution which was bolded on page 113 page of the judgment, the Supreme Court has set the stage for the Director of Public Prosecution and the police department to swing into action. 

Mr Ongo’ndi, Head of IT at the electoral agency, had cautioned the electoral commission against buying the EVIDs, saying they required more time and a parallel technology to function optimally. 

In an internal memo to Deputy Commission Secretary for support services Wilson Shollei and copied to IEBC CEO James Oswago, Mr Ong’ondi said the kits tender should not be awarded because of the risk that the gadgets. 

The contract was awarded to Face Technologies at a cost of Sh1.3 billion, according to Mr Oswago, who said the devices failed because of an operational challenge.

“We have nothing to hide, we are ready for any investigations and the procurement being subjected to public scrutiny,” Mr Oswago said Tuesday.

The poll books were meant to identify a voter before one could cast a ballot. They were also to verify that one was a registered voter and account for all those who voted, eliminating the risk of multiple voting, ghost voters and ballot stuffing. 

Mr Oswago said the commission abandoned the transmission software developed by Next Technologies during the referendum and by elections to develop its own for the General Election at a cost of Sh40 million. That would put the blame on the transmission system failure at the door of IEBC’s IT department which is headed by Mr Ong’ondi.

The failed software was developed in partnership with International Foundation for electoral System (IFES), which also bought the servers. The mobile phones were supplied by Safaricom.

The procurement of electronic systems was marked by controversy from the word go leading to the cancellation of the tenders for the Biometric Voter Register (BVR).

Former President Mwai Kibaki and former Prime Minister intervened and the kits were eventually delivered through a Canadian government loan of Sh6 billion.

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The Elections Act sets out offences that can be committed by commission officials including “without reasonable cause does or omits to do anything in breach of his official duty”.

Such an offence attracts a fine not exceeding one million shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or both upon conviction.

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Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has begun investigation into procurement of election equipment in line with a Supreme Court recommendation.

EACC in a press statement said the preliminary investigation began after it received an intelligence report that the procurement process was not transparent and may have been flawed.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court called for investigation and possible prosecution of electoral commission officials who may have been involved in impropriety during the procurement of electronic equipment.

A day later, Mr Tobiko [Public Prosecution Keriako Tobiko] sent a letter to EACC instructing it to start investigations, stating the directive arose from Justice Willy Mutunga court’s suggestion.

Evidence supplied by the electoral commission showed that the failure of the Electronic Voter Identification and the Results Transmission Systems mainly arose from misunderstandings and squabbles within the commission during the procurement. 

An internal memo by the commission’s head of IT warned of the risks posed by the kits.

The Treasury was forced to divert cash from other government operations to advance payment for the BVR kits and then obtain cash from the loan to replenish the IEBC account ahead of the General Election. 

Failure to each pact

“The Treasury has fully done its part and it is now up to IEBC to do their work,” the brief said.

The search for cash came after failure to reach an agreement by October 15 as stipulated in the contract with the supplier of the BVR kits, Morpho Canada. According to the Treasury, the government does not have a contract with French firm Safran Morpho as such but with the Canadian government that sought and obtained the BVR supplier, Morpho Canada.

Safran Morpho of France happens to be the subsidiary of Morpho Canada, which was contracted by the Canadian government.

Safran Morpho only made and supplied the equipment from France as a subsidiary of Morpho Canada, which is the actual contracting party in the deal with the governments of Kenya and Canada.

girungu@ke.nationmedia.com