Gladys Shollei: I had nothing to do with Chickengate scam

Former Judiciary Registrar Gladys Shollei leaves Integrity Centre after her grilling yesterday. [PHOTO: MOSES OMUSULA/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: Former Judiciary Chief Registrar Gladys Shollei Thursday denied any involvement in the Chickengate scandal.

Ms Shollei told the anti-corruption agency she had no role in the scandal in which electoral officials reportedly received bribes from directors of a UK firm in exchange for printing materials' contracts.

The former registrar was being grilled over the scandal touching on the defunct Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC).

Shollei said she is the one who wrote to Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in 2014 seeking clarification on the issue when it first appeared in Kenyan media.

She arrived at the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) offices at about 9am and walked out two hours later, saying she had recorded a half-page statement.

"I have told them I was neither a co-conspirator nor an indictee. I was never involved in the procurement of any material at the commission in any manner," she said.

Shollei served at the defunct IIEC as a deputy electoral officer.

Officials who served at the IIEC, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the Kenya National Examination Council are being investigated for the alleged corruption.

Court papers during the trial of Christopher Smith and Nicholas Smith, directors of the British firm, Smith & Ouzman, at the Southwark Crown Court did not name Shollei.

The particulars of the offence against the two were that between October 1, 2008, and December 2010, with Trevy James Oyombra, Joseph Hamisi and Hamida Kibwana, they corruptly agreed to make payments to IIEC officials. The IIEC officials named were James Oswago, Ahmed Issack, Kenneth Karani, Davis Chirchir and Ken Nyaundi.

Yesterday, Shollei said she served as registration and education officer while at IIEC, adding all those mentioned in the scandal are named in the SFO website.

The former JSC boss said EACC detectives handed her a copy of a local purchase order she had signed when the then chairman was in India.

"I told them I signed on behalf of the chief executive officer who was then in India. There was nothing wrong with that."

"My role was on election operations, voter registration and education. Procurement, finance and human resource fell under a different office of the CEO," said Shollei.

There was no secretariat at that time and that is why commissioners were involved in the processes.

Shollei, who talked to journalists after her grilling, accused EACC of playing to the public gallery by dragging and parading innocent people to court while the guilty are walking scot-free.

EACC is rushing against time to probe those mentioned in the Chickengate scam, almost two years after it broke out.

IEBC's Issack Hassan was on Tuesday grilled on his role in the procurement process that is at the centre of the probe.

He said British officials were convicted of crimes that were committed a year before IEBC was formed.

Shollei is the latest official to be summoned for re-grilling ahead of the submission of the probe file to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Two weeks ago, Trevor Oyombra, commissioner Yusuf Nzibo, former CEO James Oswago and commissioner Davis Chirchir and top procurement and legal officials were grilled.