An audit report before Parliament has exposed the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in generous expenditures that saw Ksh9.5 billion lost in the financial year ended in June 2017.
Auditor General Edward Ouko, in his findings, stated that IEBC could not account for numerous expenditures and in some cases, procured items were either in excess or remain unused to date.
Top on the ridiculous expenditures is the purchase of 149,640.5GB of data bundles valued at Ksh127, 625,926 million.
Out of this data bundles, the commission used only 605.3GB valued at Ksh515, 269. This means Ksh127, 109,656 was wasted on buying data that IEBC did not even require in running the elections.
In a more simplified view, it means 99.6 per cent of the money used on data bundles was just blown into the air with taxpayers getting barely any value for what IEBC paid for.
The Wafula Chebukati-team procured about 550, 381 budges in readiness for the elections. This contract was initially supposed to cost Ksh9.5 million but, according to the Auditor General, IEBC spent Kshs44 million.
On these badges alone, taxpayers lost in excess of Ksh34 million, an amount equivalent to what the government spent to build the Nyandarua Huduma Centre that serves 400 to 600 people a day.
Ouko's report also details the procurement of 515 sim cards for the October 26, 2017 repeat presidential elections but these were never delivered to the commission.
In this tender, IEBC spent money leading to a loss of Ksh4.5 million, meaning a single sim card was being purchased at Ksh8,738.
The audit also found that the external batteries purchased for the commission's BVR kits at a cost of Ksh 47 million have not been used to date.
More money was also lost in tenders for the supply of gas lamp mantles at Ksh.5.5 million. Ouko found inconsistencies in the lamp mantles at the IEBC warehouses with those supplied to 29 counties and that the commission can not account for 66,540 of them.
In a generous payment to a 42,927 ballot boxes supplier who only wanted Ksh2,250 for each box, Ouko's audit shows that IEBC paid Ksh2,500 for every box. This resulted in a loss of ksh10 million released as excess payment for the tender.
IEBC has been found to have mismanaged 1,000 Thuraya Modems and SIM cards loaded with data. Of this consignment, only 339 modems and cards with data of only 4 GB were used in the elections.
"In the circumstances, the lawfulness, authorisation and value for money of the expenditure of Sh119.7 million cannot be confirmed as required under Section 68(1) of the Public Finance and Management Act, 2012,” reads the report, in comments to the modems deal.
