Supreme Court recommends probe of IEBC officials

Retallying of presidential votes from 22 polling stations underway at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi as ordered by the Supreme Court last month. Photo/STEPHEN MUDIARI  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By PAUL JUMA
Posted  Tuesday, April 16  2013 at  15:20

 

The Supreme Court has recommended the investigation and prosecution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officers found culpable in the procurement of the Electronic Voter Identification and the Results Transmission Systems.

The six bench judge said that evidence supplied by the IEBC indicated that the failure of the technology mainly arose from the misunderstandings and squabbles among IEBC members during the procurement process.

The squabbles occasioned the failure to assess the integrity of the technologies in good time, the judges found.

It was likely that that the procurement was marked by competing interests involving impropriety or even criminality, according to the judges.

“We recommend that this matter be entrusted to the relevant state agency, for further investigation and possible prosecution of suspects," said the ruling.

The failure of the systems was one of the pillars of the presidential election petition that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga had lodged but lost.

The judges upheld Mr Odinga’s contention that the IEBC stopped using the machines after they crashed.

Electoral technologies, as with all technologies, are rarely perfect, the judges observed as they accepted explanations by the electoral commission.