IEBC chief executive on the spot over Sh2.6 bn payment

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chief executive officer Ezra Chiloba is on the spot over payment of Sh2.6 billion to a South African firm for procurement of 4,600 Electronic Voter Identification Devices (Evids) without a valid contract.

The commission procured 30,000 Evid materials at a contract sum of $16 million (Sh1.6 billion). However the commission ordered a further 4,600 Evids to cater for additional polling station without signing any contract or amending the existing contract with South African Firm-Face Technologies.

The additional Evid equipment brought the total cost of the 34,600 gadgets to $21 million (Sh2.1 billion). Mr Chiloba conceded that he made the payments without consulting the commission.

Answering questions when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee, Mr Chiloba said he made the payments after the Auditor General and the national Treasury internal audit department validated the claims for the additional electoral materials.

However, the Auditor General’s office refuted claims that it gave a clean bill of health on the procurement or directed the commission to make the payments.

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PAC chairman Nicholas Gumbo and member Abdikadir Aden (Balambala) put Mr Chiloba to task to explain why he made payments to a contract that was none-existent.

“In making the payments, did you consult the commission or you did so individually. How could you brazenly go to a new office and process payments of billions of shillings without consulting the commission or anybody? How brave were you,” Gumbo asked.

Mr Chiloba said he found payments for the additional Evid materials had been prepared when he took over office and when the auditor and treasury validated the claims, he authorised payments.

“It was my decision as I was presented with documents. I found the payments at an advanced stage. I looked at the documents before I paid. After verification the bill that the supplier was asking moved from Sh4.6 billion to Sh2.6 billion which I paid after we received supplementary budget estimates in March,” Mr Chiloba said.

Mr John Mbadi (Suba) sought to know if the contract existed when the CEO made the payments and further demanded to know the quantity of the equipment procured from Face Technologies.

Mr Chiloba said there was no variation done in the original contract when the commission decided to procure additional 4,600 kits.

“When I joined IEBC, I saw what was to be paid against the actual deliveries. Since we had received the additional Evids and we were in adverse possession of the equipment, I had to take the difficult decision of making payments,” he said.

Mr Chiloba informed the committee probing the procurement of electoral materials (BVR, Evids and results transmission devices) that many wrong decisions committing the IEBC had been undertaken.

“So many decisions to commit IEBC were made which were irregular. The procurement rules and the Public Finance Management Act were flouted,” he said.

PAC put Chiloba and a former UNDP official who worked with IEBC in the last polls to task to explain why he chose to make payments in contravention of the rules yet he refused to approve UNDP payments to IEBC projects that were executed without following procurement laws.

Mr Chiloba explained that while working with IEBC as a UNDP observer, he advised his bosses not to pay for contracts entered between the IEBC and suppliers without adhering to procurement rules.

The committee will interrogate Chiloba further.