The final report by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on the Okoa Kenya referendum push will be ready by the end of the month.
The Commission says it will be giving updates on the status of verification of signatures forwarded by the Opposition in their push for a change of the Constitution. IEBC chair Issack Hassan yesterday said they were not late as there were no deadlines regarding the verification of the signatures.
"Commission wishes to clarify that Article 257(4) of the Constitution does not set specific timelines within which the Commission must verify the signatures. As a matter of fact, time will start running upon the conclusion of the verification of the signatures and presentation of the Bill to the County Assemblies, in accordance with Article 257(5) of the Constitution," he said in a statement.
Mr Hassan said the electoral commission will hire 100 clerks on a temporary basis to digitise the 1.4 million signatures. He said the National Treasury had allowed the commission to hire the clerks and incur expenditure which will then be paid when money becomes available.
"The IEBC is in the process of verifying signatures for the Draft Bill on the Referendum to Amend the Constitution of Kenya 2010 by Popular Initiative, 2015 (Okoa Kenya)," said Hassan.
He added: "In this regard, the Commission has recruited 100 temporary clerks who will transfer the data contained in hard-copy Okoa Kenya booklets into electronic format.
The electronic data will subsequently be run against the database of registered voters for verification. The exercise will be supervised by a team of IEBC staff." IEBC will also invite observers to help with the job.