IEBC cannot account for 200 missing KIEMS kits; Audit Report
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) cannot account for 200 missing KIEMS kits
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) cannot account for 200 missing KIEMS kits.
An audit report has flagged concerns over the disappearance of at least 200 Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kits, which play a crucial role in voter identification and result transmission.
The devices, used in previous elections, were not returned to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) after the 2017 and 2022 general elections, raising fears of possible misuse.
According to the audit, the commission’s policy requires all KIEMS kits and accessories to be returned to a central warehouse on Likoni Road, Nairobi, after elections for storage and maintenance.
However, records show that while only two kits were officially reported as lost, an additional 30 were burned in Wajir during election-related violence in 2022, and 159 others, dispatched for by-elections, were never returned.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, in a review for the period ending June 30, 2024, expressed doubt over the possibility of recovering the missing kits.
She also raised concerns about IEBC’s internal controls. “In the circumstances, the effectiveness of internal controls for KIEMS kits management could not be confirmed,” reads the report in part.
IEBC acknowledged the issue, attributing it to the lack of an approved standard operating procedure for tracking the movement and management of the kits. The document outlining these procedures was under internal review but could not be implemented due to the absence of commissioners to approve it.
KIEMS kits are equipped with software for results transmission and contain biometric voter data, making their disappearance a potential security risk.
The commission admitted it was unable to trace the missing devices, a situation that could be exploited by individuals seeking to manipulate elections.
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During the 2022 general election, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga opposed the exclusive use of KIEMS kits for voter identification, advocating for manual verification.
Despite IEBC’s initial stance against printing manual voter registers, a court ruled in favour of the manual process, deeming the insistence on electronic-only identification flawed.
IEBC procured 59,100 KIEMS kits between 2017 and 2022. However, only 55,286 remain, meaning nearly 4,000 are either lost or unaccounted for.
In the year leading up to June 2023, 256 kits from Nyeri had yet to be returned to headquarters, five more were reported lost, and an additional 158 had been declared missing in earlier audits.
Furthermore, at least 3,400 KIEMS kits were found to be faulty, but their status had not been updated in the commission’s asset register.
The audit has cast a spotlight on election materials that could be in the wrong hands, raising fresh concerns over the integrity of future elections.
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