IEBC Chair Demands Answers from CEO Ezra Chiloba as Rift Widens

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati has written a show- cause letter to CEO Ezra Chiloba over the bungled August 8th election.

In a memo on Thursday, Chebukati raised 12 pertinent questions to Chiloba regarding last month's poll that has since been nullified by the Supreme Court.

The chairperson want Chiloba to explain why he contradicted with the position adopted by the commission on a memo referenced IEBC/CEO/1/1/09/2017.

He further wants Chiloba to explain what happened to the printed forms that were meant to have key security features and names of candidates printed as required and verified by the team the commission sent to Dubai.

He also wants him to answer whether printing and scanning machines supplied by Messer MFI were fit for the purpose as intended; where they were availed and why they failed to function.

He also demands explanations on why the satellite mobile phones purchased by IEBC were not used to transmit data from polling stations as it was supposed to be.

Chiloba is also required to explain why, without his consent, Chebukati's name was used to create an account that made 9,934 transactions.

The chair also demands to know what went wrong with the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kits results transmission and why over 10,366 out of 40,883 polling stations transmitted results without Forms 34A.

Further he asks why 595 Polling stations failed to any relay results for the presidential election.

Chiloba is also required to give reasons why the commission opted to use a porous file server system for forms 34B submission instead of using a secure system.

He also demands to know why IEBC used the subject server for day to day operations before elections and why ICT staff used passwords different from IEBC passwords.

Further, he asks why some KIEMS kits were assigned Airtel and Telkom service providers in areas where only Safaricom had the required coverage and also why why 682 polling centres had an equal number of rejected votes vis-à-vis the number of registered voters.

Lastly, the chair wants Chiloba explain why KIEMS GPRS and Geo-fencing features were switched off from August 5, 2017, three days before election date.