Date set for fraud case against IEBC officials

By FAITH KARANJA

The case against four IEBC officials charged over Sh1.3 billion polls kit tender will commence on February 24, 2014.

 IEBC’s Chief Executive Officer James Oswago, Deputy Secretary of support and services Wilson Shollei, Edward Karisa of finance and procurement and Willy Kamanga, who was the acting procurement manager, yesterday appeared before the Senior Principal Magistrate Doreen Mulekyo.

They are charged with failure to comply with the law relating to procurement, contrary to Section 45(2) (b) as read with section 48 of the Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Act, 2003.

Oswago and his co-accused were suspended on November 1, a few hours after they were charged with abuse of office and failing to comply with procurement procedures.

The Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) team arrested the officials on October 29.

After the March poll, the EACC wrote to the IEBC demanding details of the process through which ICT systems were procured.

EACC Chief Executive Officer Halakhe Waqo said at the time that the anti-corruption watchdog started the investigations when it emerged that the IEBC procurement process may have been flawed.

He explained that the probe started when squabbles emerged at the IEBC tendering committee over the ICT systems including the electronic transmission of results, performance of the Electronic Voter Identification Device, infrastructure capacity, results visualisation and skill capability.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko had, at the same time, written to the EACC asking it to commence investigations into the IEBC procurement process.

Tobiko told the EACC that he had appointed a team of prosecution counsel to assist them in the investigations.

“You may therefore instruct the head of your investigating team to liaise with our Mr Kioko Kamula for coordination purposes,” wrote Tobiko.

The Supreme Court judgment on the presidential petition had also recommended further investigations and possible prosecution of the IEBC tender committee members.