The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) 'ignored expert advice on procurement of election gadgets'

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ignored expert advice on the procurement of the Electronic Voters Identification Devices (EVID), a parliamentary committee has been told.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard yesterday that IEBC procured the equipment in total disregard to advice from its Information and Communication Technology Director and an external consultant.

Former IEBC's director of ICT Dismas Ongondi said they warned against the purchase of the equipment after it became apparent they could not be delivered in time for the polls.

Mr Ongondi said the devices were destined to fail because it was not going to be possible to transfer all the voter information to the EVIDs before the polling date.

"We advised IEBC on the risk of failure of the kits, but our advice was ignored," said Ongondi.

In his submission to the committee yesterday, the former ICT director explained that although it was the responsibility of Face Technologies, the EVID supplier, to make Biometric Voter Registration data EVID-compliant, the company failed to do so.

He said in the specification given in the tender document, Face Technologies was to, among other things, supply the EVID and convert the BVR data at their own cost.

Kitutu Chache MP Timothy Bosire, a member of the committee, wondered if the electoral commission had an internal capacity to transfer the data captured during the voter registration to the EVIDs.

In his response, Ongondi said the way the data was captured and stored in BVR was different from how it was going to appear in the EVIDs and  the commission could not do the job for the supplier.

"It was the responsibility of the supplier to provide the infrastructure, but they failed to so," said Ongondi.

Ongondi disclosed that the Isaack Hassan-led commission also ignored the advice of an independent ICT consultant, International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES), on the cancellation of the procurement of EVIDs because of time constraints.

According to Ongondi, the EVIDs failed because they arrived in the country on February 28, just four days before the March 4, 2013, polls. He said electoral officials who were going to handle the devices on the polling day were also not adequately trained.

"If the EVIDs were supplied early and the system tested in the field, this system would have worked," said Ongondi.

Junet Mohamed (Suna East) also pressed Ongondi to explain why the Results Transmission System (RTS) failed. Ongondi admitted they had configured both the EVIDs and RTS servers to accommodate a certain amount of data.

PAC is investigating procurement of the poll equipment in which the Auditor General's report indicates the country lost about Sh3.9 billion.