Witness denies being part of IEBC tender committee

By Lillian Otieno

A witness in the IEBC tender award involving six people and one company has denied ever being part of a committee that held meetings at a Nairobi club where alterations in figures on certain amounts of monies were done.

Michael Douglas Oyaro, a strategy monitoring manager at the electoral body IEBC told the anti-corruption court that he chaired an evaluation committee that awarded tenders on IEBC 2013 Election materials but at no point was it brought to their attention that another parallel committee was doing the same job.

While appearing before anti-corruption magistrate Lawrence Mugambi, Oyaro together with his team, told the court that a parallel committee held meetings at a Nairobi hotel where certain figures of the awarded tenders were changed.

Oyaro said they recommended that a tender on supply of lanterns be given to solar mark productions having considered that it was the lowest bidder with the recommended qualifications.

Solar had bided 105 Million shillings while its immediate competitor 107 million shillings.

But the committee was not privy to information that Solar Mark had in its original tender bid indicated 127 million shillings which was eventually the amount paid to it but turned out to be 22 million shillings higher than the awarded amount of tender.

Solar mark is a company associated with businessman Benson Gethi who is one of the accused persons in the matter.

The other co-accused persons are Samuel Wachenje, Benson Gachoka, John Hope Vandamme and Martin Gachara Wanjohi among others. The hearing continues.

And former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga has been directed to amend his application by removing the IEBC as a respondent in the case against the Jubilee party of Kenya.

Njenga has further been directed to file a supplementary affidavit to attach party nomination regulations for completion of the application scheduled for hearing this Thursday.

The panel of five judges said they did not have jurisdiction over IEBC and can therefore not listen to the petition pitting IEBC as the first respondent.

The former Mungiki leader who has his eyes set on Laikipia senatorial seat has moved to court seeking the political parties’ tribunal to compel the Jubilee Party of Kenya to accept his nomination papers only a week after they were rejected on account of instructions from the party leader president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

Finally, a Meru County parliamentary aspirant has been charged with obtaining 7.5 million shillings by false pretense.

Charles Mwiti Mugambi is accused of receiving the money from Erick Mwenda pretending that he is able to sell him a piece of land in Nairobi’s flashy Runda estate. He was released on a 1 million shillings cash bail.