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Kenya opposition accuses French firm of bribing IEBC staff

Tuesday September 19 2017
POLPIC

Opposition Nasa co-principal Musalia Mudavadi addresses the media outside IEBC offices at Anniversary Towers, Nairobi, on September 12, 2017. Nasa MPs said the IEBC’s server logs demonstrated an authorised user using a personal email account to access the server contrary to IEBC’s ICT user policy. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION

By BUSINESS DAILY

Kenya opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) legislators have claimed that a French IT firm that supplied election kits paid a Ksh200 million ($1.9m) bribe to a senior government official and an electoral commission official to win the contract to supply the Kenya Integrated Election Management (KIEMs) kits.

Led by Suna East MP Junet Mohammed, the 10 MPs said they will not allow the company to provide IT services in the October 17 fresh presidential election.

“We are aware that a senior national government official and a senior Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officer each received bribes to the tune of Ksh200 million ($1.9m) for the IT contract.

“The bribe money was paid to the parties through a law firm in the city centre and dispatched to the national government officer in batches of Ksh20 million (about $200,000),” Mr Mohammed said at a press conference held in Parliament.

READ: EU poll observers now call for probe, prosecution of IEBC chiefs

Mr Mohammed said Nasa had information that the firm was fined euros 500,000 ($630,000) in 2012 by a Paris court for bribing public officials in Nigeria to win a contract in 2002/2003.

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“As it declares itself clean and ready for another election on October 17, we know the IEBC’s own file transfer protocol server logs show over 2,500 attempts to penetrate the system by unauthorised users prior to the election,” he said.

The MPs said the IEBC’s server logs demonstrated an authorised user using a personal email account to access the server contrary to IEBC’s ICT user policy.

Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga last week urged the French government to investigate the Paris-based firm and its relations with electoral officials who he alleged may have undermined the election.

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