NASA objects to 'outrageous' tender award to OT-Morpho

Some days ago, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and French technology firm OT-Morpho signed a contract that will see the single-sourced French firm paid Sh2.4 billion to provide an electoral management system for the new presidential election on October 26.

The two have pulled another expensive fraud on Kenyan taxpayers, even before the IEBC and OT-Morpho can address numerous questions regarding irregularities and illegalities in the August 8 election.

The contract signed on September 28 is just about Sh1.4 billion less than the cost of similar IT services for the August 8 General Election. The August polls involved thousands of candidates running for six different positions for which OT-Morpho was paid Sh3.8 billion.

The Sh2.4 billion contract for an election involving only two candidates is not only outrageous but an act of fraud and deliberate theft of public funds and bribery.

Furthermore, we are aware the Sh2.4 billion awarded sum is way above the Sh800 million that the IEBC technical committee recommended.

Kenyans should be excused if they were to conclude that the offensive amounts are being paid as a bribe to OT-Morpho for a shady job of using technology to tilt the election in favour of Jubilee in the same way it did last month. This is fortified by the fact that Attorney General Githu Muigai and Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich approved the colossal sums. Of course, part of the huge sum may as well find its way to IEBC and senior government officials as commission, as happened in the ChickenGate scandal.

This new contract comes even before the French government, which is a shareholder in OT-Morpho, responds to the issues NASA raised about the unethical conduct of the firm in Kenya.

Until the French absolve themselves, the award further confirms that OT-Morpho is firmly part and parcel of a criminal enterprise that has hijacked the Kenyan electoral system with the sole aim of profiteering and frustrating the democratic ambitions of the people of Kenya.

NASA objects firmly to this criminality. We demand that the IEBC and OT-Morpho explain to Kenyans how the figure was arrived at. We also demand that the Attorney General and Cabinet Secretary Treasury tell Kenyans on what basis they approved this fraud.

Finally, NASA wishes to reiterate that the IEBC lacks good faith and is still hell-bent on committing crimes against Kenyans in collusion with OT-Morpho.

The writer is the ANC party leader

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