NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 14 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has pending bills amounting to Sh4.4 billion with Sh3.8 billion of the bills owed to lawyers according to the details presented to the National Assembly.
In the breakdowns routine constitutional and civil cases incurred (Sh1.76bn), presidential election petitions of the August 9, 2022 election (Sh567.3mn), and pre-election petitions on political parties and dispute resolutions (Sh479.2mn).
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly yesterday, IEBC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Marjan Hussein Marjan was cornered to explain how the law firms were awarded contracts.
This is after it emerged that 148 law firms had been prequalified by the poll body.
The Chairman of the Committee John Mbadi questioned the methodology of awarding the legal firms the contract pointing out that the government was spending the majority of the budget on legal fee.
“The government spends so much on legal fees at the IEBC, and the fees don’t seem to end. If you have a list of 148 law firms that are prequalified, how did you give them the jobs,” he said.
Marjan however explained to MPs that the reason why pending bills have been piling especially on legal matters is that the budgetary allocation in election year focuses on operations and maintenance expenditure.
“The expenditures have been largely outside the commission budget and this means that pending bills cannot be absorbed in the first charge,” said the IEBC CEO.
In addition, IEBC director of legal services Crispin Owiye said that the legal department recommends to the IEBC CEO three law firms.
From the pool of three, the IEBC CEO is required to pick one and award the contract.
“When choosing the law firms we look at the specialty of the firm, the gravity of the matter, and the geographical location when choosing the three law firms,” said Owiye.
MPs questioned why the legal firms who offered their services in the 2017 general elections were sitting pretty without their dues from the poll agency.
The crisis is that the longer the bills remain unpaid the more they accrue interest which is an extra expense to the taxpayers.
Marjan however decried that in the current financial nothing was allocated by the National Treasury to pay the pending bills.
The IEBC CEO mentioned they have engaged the National Treasury to request money to pay the pending bills that have been accruing every financial year.
“We have a schedule of correspondences where we tried to engage the National Treasury requesting the money to pay the bills. We even had meetings and task forces formed to look at the pending bills but nothing so far,” he said.
