The mystery of stolen BVR kits
 |
| PHOTO COURTESY |
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has been facing critisizm for quite some time now by the opposition and is now sitting on a time-bomb after it emerged 74 of its BVR kits and five generators were stolen from its North Rift warehouse.
The details emerged amid revelations that another 200 kits were permanently given to the Ministry of Devolution –
sparking fears that the gadgets are being used for parallel voter listing in the ongoing mass voter registration exercise.
There is a growing number of complaints of Kenyans captured in the IEBC data base as fully registered and probably voted in 2013, but are yet to register for the first time.
Shockingly, there are also cases of different people sharing the same ID numbers in the IEBC system.
The anomalies are raising serious integrity questions about the sanctity of the voter register as Kenya heads to the titanic 2017 polls.
ALSO READ: SAFARICOM GATE SCANDAL
Last week, Wiper Leader Kalonzo Musyoka paraded six people who has experienced the irregularity and raised the red flag the “fraud” could be widespread.
“The
integrity of the ongoing exercise is in serious doubt, just like the integrity of the IEBC itself. We need a thorough audit of the IEBC system to establish how deep this scam runs and who is responsible for it,”
Kalonzo warned in a terse statement.
In its last year’s
report to the bicameral Parliament, IEBC admitted that about 74 BVR kits and five generators worth Sh31, 256,120 were stolen from its North Rift warehouse.
However, the Commission declined to comment on the impact of the kits being in the wrong hands and the scope of investigations.
The 15, 000 the gadgets cost the taxpayer a staggering Sh7.2 billion. Some of the victims of the registration irregularities have said they participated in the NYS youth programme where they underwent
biometric registration.
And in an alarming confession, Public Service Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki admitted some of the kits donated to the Ministry were currently being used in 69 constituencies for the youth
programme.
This however has not alarmed IEBC that described the allegations raised by Cord as “unsubstantiated
and false.”
“It has been
claimed that the commission has employed NYS personnel to carry out such voter registration. There is no iota of truth in the allegations,”
IEBC Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba said.
“The
commission cares for the integrity of the voters register at all times. This is our job and we will continue to do it for the benefit of all Kenyans.”
But this was the same self-justifying attitude of the Isaac Hassan-led team in 2013 before later admitting in a confidential internal report that they indeed bungled the elections.
In the leaked report, IEBC confessed that it went to the hotly-contested polls with a faulty voters register.
The report indicates that some registered voters were left out of the national voters roll and there was more than one final register, which IEBC admits it did not ‘fully
clean.’
“Some
Biometric Voter Registration kits crashed before data was fully backed up. Moreover, no data was recovered,”
the internal audit published after the presidential petition said.
However at the Supreme Court, Hassan put up a strong face and disparagingly referred to Opposition Chief Raila Odinga as a perennial loser.
But the Opposition captain has now stated that he will not allow “another slap on his cheeks”
and sounded an alarm to IEBC to get its acts together.
“Just
register, vote and leave the rest to me – but this
time round, I am not coming to tell you my votes have been stolen,”
Raila has been telling his supporters.
The Xnyaundi blog has established that IEBC charged Sh422, 380 for each of the 200 kits that it fully transferred to the Ministry of Devolution for use in the bio-metric registration of public servants.
This means that the commission netted about Sh84, 476,000 from the transfer. Jubilee’s
tyranny of numbers is under threat and the ruling coalition’s
ability to recapture power
is under threat.
According to statistics released by IEBC, 616,697 voters in Luo-Nyanza alone are eligible for registration this year, followed by 589,306 in Western. Nairobi, the epicenter of Kenyan politics and where Raila beat
President Uhuru Kenyatta hands down in 2013, is expected to net an additional 561, 437 new voters.
Uhuru’s Central
backyard comes fourth at 538,433, followed by the Coast region at 512,285.
A midst all this the big question is where are the BVR kits and what are they going to be used for?
CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER
No comments