Fresh row hits IEBC after Sh3 billion tender awarded to yet-to-be vetted French firm

The Public Procurement Administrative Review Board has made a ruling that could have far-reaching effects on the August 8 elections.

The board has ruled that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission should award a Sh3 billion tender for the supply, delivery, installation, testing, commissioning and support of the Integrated Elections Management Systems (KIEMS) to a French Company, Gelato SA.

The board made the decision last Thursday despite knowledge that IEBC has not completed evaluating Gemalto SA.

“….and the procuring is therefore at liberty to proceed and conclude the procurement process herein by carrying out a financial evaluation on the bidder who was recommended as being successful bidder at the technical evaluation stage namely M/S Gemalto S.A,” stated the board in a ruling it made on Thursday last week.

The system being sought is to integrate the existing biometric voter registration, the biometric voter identification, the electronic results transmission and the political party and candidate registration systems.

The System is a key component of the technology IEBC is supposed to deploy to ensure the entire electoral process is transparent, secure, verifiable, reliable and highly available during voter registration, candidate registration, and voter verification and results transmission exercises.

Already voter registration has been done without it and it may not be possible for IEBC to procure the system before the start of voter verification exercise on May 20.

It further ordered IEBC to conclude the financial evaluation and award the tender within 30 days from the day of the date of the tender opening.

The IEBC through its lawyers had argued that it was premature for the board to make such a ruling considering that the tendering process was incomplete.

“We find this ruling really strange. How can IEBC award a tender to a company it has not properly evaluated? The board should only have ordered that the process be completed,” said a lawyer who has inside knowledge of the proceedings.

It is understood that when the IEBC opened the tender last month, the technical team knocked off all other bidders on technical grounds leaving Gemalto S.A. as the only company that would proceed to the evaluation stage.

On February 28, IEBC made a decision to terminate the tender so that it can invite fresh bids.

However, before the IEBC restarted the procurement process, another bidder went to the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board and challenged the IEBC decision to terminate the tender.

In its decision, the board, chaired by Paul Gituma declared the decision by IEBC to terminate the tender null and void. It also ordered IEBC to award Gemalto the tender.

According to a statement on its website, Gemalto S.A. engages in the design, development, manufacture, and marketing of microprocessor solutions and nonchip-based products for customers in the telecommunications, financial services, identity, and security industries.

Gemalto S.A. was formerly known as Gemplus S.A. and changed its name to Gemalto S.A. in June 2006. The company was incorporated in 1986 and is based in Meudon, France. Gemalto S.A. operates as a subsidiary of Gemalto NV.

The company partnered with a Moroccancompany and does not have a lot of experience in managing ICT electoral systems.

Source