Voter kits had no power, says ex-IEBC commissioner

A Nairobi court heard Wednesday that electronic voter identification devices procured for the 2013 General Elections failed because the officials failed to charge them.

Testifying in a case where four officials are in court over the procurement of the 34,000 electronic voter identification devices (Evid), former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission commissioner Abdulahi Sharawe said they were at Bomas of Kenya when they were informed that most of the kits had failed on the voting day.

More than half of the kits, or poll books, failed, forcing the IEBC to use the manual system.

The failure of these devices was at the heart of Raila Odinga’s petition challenging the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as President in the 2013 election. The Supreme Court upheld President Kenyatta's election victory.

Mr Sharawe said although the commission had agreed with Face Technologies to supply 30,000 kits, the company supplied 34,000 to cater for the additional polling stations.

He said nearly all of them failed to function across the country as some crashed and others went off due to power.

He said the company supplied two types of EVID kits for the election, laptops with finger print readers and handheld fingerprint readers.

In the case, former chief executive James Oswago and former deputy commission secretary in charge of Support Services Wilson Kiprotich Shollei, Director of Finance Edward Kenga Karisa and procurement manager Willy Gachanja Kamanga have denied charges of abuse of office and failing to comply with procurement regulations.

Mr Oswago and Mr Shollei face charges of failing to ensure that changes made to the contract awarded to Face Technologies Limited for supply of Evids were approved by the commission.