Polls team cancels Sh3.9 billion voter registration tender

The time-table for holding the general election next year has been thrown into crisis following the cancellation of the controversial Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) tender on Monday.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has now started tendering for the supply of software and registration kits afresh, just seven months to the polls set for March 4.

The cancellation follows doubts cast over the capacity of the four shortlisted firms to supply the 9,700 voter registration kits. One of the firms — 4G Identity Solutions — is said to have declined to grease the palms of Kenya embassy officials in India to sway the contract its way.

The other firms that were in the running for the tender were Kenya’s Symphony, South Africa’s Face Technology and Israeli’s On Track Innovations.
Symphony was seen as the frontrunner for the Sh3.9 billion contract despite 4G having quoted the lowest price — Sh3.7 billion.

“This is to inform all the bidders who participated in the above tender that the procurement process has been terminated,” says James Oswago, the IEBC chief executive in a brief statement.

4G Identity Solutions has however claimed that it had been under pressure from some government officials to give a Sh30 million bribe to stay in contention of winning the tender.

Without the equipment, voter registration is unlikely to go on, cutting down the time for other activities in the polls countdown.

Debate about the BVR reached fever-pitch over the weekend after it emerged that none of the four shortlisted firms had met the requirements set by the evaluation team led my Decima M’mayi.

The evaluation committee had expressed reservations about the technical capacity of the short-listed firms in meeting the standards set out in the tendering invitation, eroding the credibility of the entire electoral process.

Symphony, which quoted Sh3.8 billion, was rated highly on the machines for identifying fingerprints, ranking highest on the technical capacity ensuring that it emerged as the strongest candidate to win the tender.

On Track Innovations had been disqualified on giving the most expensive bid of Sh8 billion, even as it had no prior experience with provision of BVR kit.

Face Technologies from South Africa, ranked fourth in the report, after its camera was found to be sub-standard and its proposal for power especially in areas without electricity was also questioned.

Under the BVR system, sophisticated scanners are used to take facial images and fingerprints of the voter, which are then stored in a central computer.
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