IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati has said that the electoral body doesn’t have enough time to commence the process of awarding a tender to another ballot paper printing company. While addressing the press after a closed-door meeting with some presidential candidates in Nairobi, Chebukati said the contract has already been signed “The contract has been signed and if you understand the law, every contract has clauses,” said Chebukati, “If you look at the timelines we have, now we need to be dealing with the artwork for the ballot papers, and we must complete the register by tomorrow. So we don’t have time to go into procurement afresh.”
This comes after claims by opposition coalition NASA that the tender awarded to the Dubai-based Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing is clouded by uncertainties, which were laid out by ODM leader Raila Odinga during the just concluded Elections Conference which was held at KICC.
However, he said the issue of cancelling the tender or not cancelling the tender wasn’t the main discussion in the meeting. The issues discussed during the closed-door meeting included the ballot papers procurement process and why IEBC chose Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing, measures being put in place for ballot paper control and reconciliation on the polling day, and stakeholder participation in ballot printing and deployment monitoring.
Furthermore, he assured Kenyans that the Commission will carry out its duty without favoritism, adding that if the IEBC officers are found guilty of impropriety, the commission will take action, “If there is evidence that our officers are involved in anything wich is unlawful, we as a commission we’ll take action,” he said.