The independent ectoral and and Boundaries Commission went flat out award contracts to certain firms, against all legal and regulatory challenges, to the loss of the taxpayer. IEBC also bought some items at three times the market rate. Even then the paid for materials that were delivered Ieng a.fret the 2017 elecfion ~d ended. Besides Safran which enjoyed inexplicable privilege, IEBC – against myriad court cases and petitions to the procurement regulatory authority – went flat, out to ensure Al Ghurair Printing and PUblisbing LLC, a DUbitl,based compaJWwhith-the Opposition linked to the Jubilee candidate, printed and delivered ballot papers. “Engagement of Al Ghurair was wrought with litigation and the commission position was manifest all through in the defence of the company. In fact, IEBC didn’t provide room for alternative. It was fixated on this company;’ says an insider. A South African company in­ terested in the contract had its offer in dead water. Ren-Form CC, proposed to print and deliver presidential ballot papers in less than a fortnight, if contracted. “For delivery to (Jomo Ken­ yatta International Airport) by not later than August 2, 2017 provided production starts by July 21;’ Jean-Pierre du Sart, its sales director wt ote back to IEBC on July 14, 2017. Presidential papers The presidential papers for the General Election arrived on August 1, 2017. Implicitly, IEBC wasn’t time-strapped as it claimed to justify the contract award to Al Ghurair. The offer followed a plenary resolution that an alternative interJ;:).atio~ i:lom,pany ‘De identi­ fied. to procure the ballmS’ in line with a court judgment that almost disrupted IEBC ‘s plan to award Al · Ghurair. The Court annulled the contract on the basis that IEBC failed to conduct the statutory public participation. Instructively, Ren Form CC isn’t a run-of-the-mill company; it has supplied ballots in 22 African countries, including Zambia on three occasions before losing out to Al Ghurair in the August 2016 elections. Thus, it was plainly fallacious for the IEBC to claim that it was time-strapped and that alternative suppliers lacked the technical capability. As it turned out, IEBC reached out to Ren Form CC as a matter of procedure. Notably, Al Ghurair printed an extra 1.2 million (instead of the 196,115 agreed at the Plenary) presidential ballots in contro- ‘theft was versial circumstances, a matter that further complicated the al­ ready strained relations between Chebukati and Chiloba. On August 1, 2017 -just a week to election – Chebukati asked Chiloba to explain “who gave (him) authority to print excess of 1.2 million instead of 196,115 ballot papers (1 per cent of the total requisition). The 1 per cent was to cater for spoilt ballots and “adverse circumstances “as well as reduce the risk of mismanagement of ballot papers”. Inhis respease, Chiloba a~teed that plenary had resolred that, in­ deed, 1 per cent extra ballots were to be prin~ed but the,ml:li1ber yta$ to be “rounded off to the nearest 50”. How IEBC resolved this isn’t known, for the matter appeared to have ended with Chiloba’s response. However, according to the Auditor General, “verification undertaken in 35 sampled coun­ ties across the country there were falsification of records on issued ballot papers maintained at IEBC warehouse in Nairobi compared with actual receipts in the field re­ sulting in a variance of 2,534,904 ballot papers which have not been accounted for”. The Al Ghurair contract was signed just days after IEBC’s then head of procurement Lawy Aura was sent packing “With immediate effect” .for de.clining to give a favourable opinion on the proposed award to Ghurair, according to sources. At the end, the contract for printing of ballot papers went through open tender, restricted tender then direct procurement. Al Ghurair survived this bizarre process. Apart from the controver­ sy-strewn contracts for KIEMS and ballot papers, almost all other financial deals had a tint of fraud. The acquisition of data bundles can only pass for a spending binge. IEBC acquired Sh127.6 million worth of data bundles (149,640GB or 149TB) from Safaricom, Telkom and Airtel. Yet when the Auditor General analysed Internet use on the SIM cards, only 605.3GB of bundles worth Sh515,269 had been used – a mere 0-4 per cent of the actjlli.<tition. 1t’s :incemprebensible that IEBC didn’t enter into a postpaid ar­ rangement with the telcos. Either elements in the secretariat were out to make a fast kill or an extrav­ agant IEBC failed to pre-quantify the amount of data required before issuing the contract. Con­ sequently, Sh127.08 million went to waste or wasl’trlsapprdplliat.ed. But more confoi:mdirig is a case where IEBC cloned contracts – a situation that resulted in the loss of billions of shillings. The work was replicated, given different titles and then awarded separately yet the goods and ser­ vices involved could have been performed by a single supplier. Perhaps IEBC would argue that it sought to spread risks. But in real sense, the Commission did this to benefit multiple vendors, ‘theft was versial circumstances, a matter that further complicated the al­ ready strained relations between Chebukati and Chiloba. On August 1, 2017 -just a week to election – Chebukati asked Chiloba to explain “who gave (him) authority to print excess of 1.2 million instead of 196,115 ballot papers (1 per cent of the total requisition). The 1 per cent was to cater for spoilt ballots and “adverse circumstances “as well as reduce the risk of mismanagement of ballot papers”. Inhis respease, Chiloba a~teed that plenary had resolred that, in­ deed, 1 per cent extra ballots were to be prin~ed but the,ml:li1ber yta$ to be “rounded off to the nearest 50”. How IEBC resolved this isn’t known, for the matter appeared to have ended with Chiloba’s response. However, according to the Auditor General, “verification undertaken in 35 sampled coun­ ties across the country there were falsification of records on issued ballot papers maintained at IEBC warehouse in Nairobi compared with actual receipts in the field re­ sulting in a variance of 2,534,904 ballot papers which have not been accounted for”. The Al Ghurair contract was signed just days after IEBC’s then head of procurement Lawy Aura was sent packing “With immediate effect” .for de.clining to give a favourable opinion on the proposed award to Ghurair, according to sources. At the end, the contract for printing of ballot papers went through open tender, restricted tender then direct procurement. Al Ghurair survived this bizarre process. Apart from the controver­ sy-strewn contracts for KIEMS and ballot papers, almost all other financial deals had a tint of fraud. The acquisition of data bundles can only pass for a spending binge. IEBC acquired Sh127.6 million worth of data bundles (149,640GB or 149TB) from Safaricom, Telkom and Airtel. Yet when the Auditor General analysed Internet use on the SIM cards, only 605.3GB of bundles worth Sh515,269 had been used – a mere 0-4 per cent of the actjlli.<tition. 1t’s :incemprebensible that IEBC didn’t enter into a postpaid ar­ rangement with the telcos. Either elements in the secretariat were out to make a fast kill or an extrav­ agant IEBC failed to pre-quantify the amount of data required before issuing the contract. Con­ sequently, Sh127.08 million went to waste or wasl’trlsapprdplliat.ed. But more confoi:mdirig is a case where IEBC cloned contracts – a situation that resulted in the loss of billions of shillings. The work was replicated, given different titles and then awarded separately yet the goods and ser­ vices involved could have been performed by a single supplier. Perhaps IEBC would argue that it sought to spread risks. But in real sense, the Commission did this to benefit multiple vendors, of Oracle database and security solution, which also comprised the review and assessment of the election technology, was awarded to Oracle Technology Systems (Kenya) Ltd via direct procure­ ment. It was controversial. First, Oracle itself reportedly drew the terms of reference (ToRs). Second, there was no contract between the Commission and this vendor. Instead, there were signed ordering documents. Third, the KPMG audit of the voter register had already identi­ fied the inherent security lapses in the IEBC technology and had suggested solutions. Inflated cost Fourth, the Commission’s ICT department had requisitioned pur­ chase of Oracle database solutions and licences at Sh8o million but it was awarded for Sh273 million. Yet, despite the inflated cost, Oracle partially delivered – it conducted one training instead of six. Database Vault, Real Ap­ plication Cluster (that enables sharing of resources in form of cloud architecture) and training were “not complete”, according to audits. IEBC contracted Africa Neuro­ tech Systems Ltd to supply. Install, implement, and commis ion and support its primary and secondary data centre equipment. It was paid Sh249.3 million against contract budget of Sh130 million. But ac­ cording to the Auditor General, the Commission “paid the vendor before testing and commissioning the equipment”. The data centre wasn’t ready at the time of August Election. Neurotech Systems Ltd is owned by Dan Kinyua Njuguna. A multimillion-shilling company with a presence in five African countries, it is intriguingly clas­ sified by the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) among “disadvantaged” SME companies – those earmarked for Affirmative Action. Despite non-compliance, IEBC still engaged Neurotech – through direct procurement – to supply and deliver storage expansion for the converged infrastructure, at a cost of Sh165.7 million. Sh165.7 million was paid against a user requisition of Sh124 million. The equipment was delivered on January 9, 2018 – well after the FPE. In the end, IEBC paid Neu- rotech Sh415 million for facilities never used during the two elections. As regards Telkom, it wasn’t among those pre-qualified for the tender (co-location services for data centre and disaster recovery site). However, in unclear terms, IEBC’s evaluation committee recommended it be awarded the contract, which was inexplicably overvalued by Sh4.92 million. Once it became apparent that these companies had defaulted on their contracts, IEBC and Safran went into panic mode. The French company wrote to the Commission to be allowed to use Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corpo­ ration (NTT) cloud services. The Commissioner would later accept the offer, even without a contract between the two, in a letter dated July 28, 2017. Notably, the country went into the election without a backup server. IEBC didn’t have any data recov­ ery infrastructure. And this partly explains why it couldn’t respond to Nasa’s demand to access the server. Nonetheless, IT experts question why IEBC dealt with NTT through Safran Identity yet the Japanese company has local representation – Dimension Data (which oper­ ates in Kenya as Dimension Data Kenya, Internet Solutions Kenya and Plessey Kenya). “The Commission needs to jus­ tify contracting process for cloud services while at the same time in­ curs Sh1,002,813,667.97 on similar services that were never utilised;’ says the Auditor Generai. Our investigations reveal that IEBC awarded co:p,t:rac:t for aloud services despite an advisory by the Communication Authority of Kenya against the use of private servers. The Authority, in response to the commission’s proposal to use a private cloud server to supplement its primary and secondary disaster recovery sites, warned that sensitive data couldn’t be placed in private hands. Intriguingly, the cost for cloud services during FPE was Sh50.7 Million more than during the Gen­ eral Elections. On June 20, 2017, the then IT chief Chris Msando presented a paper on the transmissiQn_of results for the August elections in which he indicated that some polling stations were out of the 3G and 4G network coverage required for KEMS transmission of results. An analysis found 11,115 stations report­ edly outside the network coverage. To cover this, IEBC proposed 1,000 and 1500 satellite units (at cost of Sh550 million and Sh825 million respectively) to be used in results from outside the requisite network. The first batch of Airtel’s 1,000 Thuraya data modems and SIM cards were distributed to constituencies before the Aug 8 elections. However, in the end, only 339 modems and SIM cards with 4GB were used. The rest, according to IEBC internal audit, were deliv­ ~ed OOAUgt!St 24, 2Ql{, way after the polls – altllopgh the Auditor General says that they were in fact supplied much later, on October 5, 2017. Yet, despite this, IEBC still went ahead to give out another contract for 1,000 units for FPE and which were received in January 2018. I The Commission appeared not interested in the devices it had procured for the August polls or the unused 600. At the end, owing to delay in delivery, IEBC “reactivated and reused” the devices, according to Auditor General. Same supplier That apart, a ballot box that cost Sh1,800 during the August election was later procured at Sh2,500 for the FPE. This was in spite of the similarity in specifications and same supplier. Thus IEBC lost Sh27.9 million (from purchase of 42,927 boxes) in inflated costing. Mini Mix Agencies was on March 3, 2017 awarded the Sh19.5 million contract to supply and deliver 3,696,000 security seals at unit price of Sh5.30. However, it delivered just 2,001,600 units on July 22, 2017. The rest, 1,694,400 seals, were sup­ plied on October 19, 2017 – more than 2 months after the election. Yet IEBC didn’t terminate the contract even after the supplier had stalled. Instead, the commission rushed to contract Ramaas Supplies Ltd, through direct procurement, for 500,000 seals at Sh24.5 million (at Sh49 a unit) to mitigate the shortfall. Instructively, this company had failed at the preliminary evaluation stage during the tender process, having quoted Sh18.10 a unit. High Court Judge Pauline Nyam­ weya last October ruled that the Sh350 million contract to provide “strategic communication and in­ tegrated media campaign services” was irregular. The Secretariat had deviated from plenary resolution and inex­ plicably hired ScanAd. All said, “election 2017 was a swindle;’ according to a member of the now-defunct Interim Independ­ ent Electoral Commission. “The theft was beyond the imaginable:’