IEBC issues new statement regarding Chiloba's job

juma chrispinus

October 11, 2017 10:30 AM

IEBC has officially said that the Commission's Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba will be...

The IEBC has finally allowed full access to the servers that were used in the August 8 polls.

The Wafula Chebukati led commission on Tuesday evening, minute after the withdrawal of Mr Odinga from the race, conceded to numerous demands made by Nasa including access to the election servers.

In addition to agreeing to allow presidential candidates’ agents to access the servers, IEBC in a letter to Nasa team, resolved to give the GPS locations for all the polling stations.

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The IEBC has also agreed to give the full details of the number of people who voted in the all the 40,883 polling station across the country.

“The commission concurs with this request (NASA access to the servers). Appropriate access to the electoral technologies will be granted to the presidential candidates’ agents or representatives within the existing laws and commission’s security policies,” the reply by IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati to NASA’s letter read in part, as quoted by the Standard.

Crucial Forms 34A and 34B

The agency also agreed to have all the forms transmitted simultaneously with the keyed-in results. The Commission has also made a drastic change to the effect that the name of the polling station will also be displayed.

Although NASA roped in Safaricom in its list of the firms that were allegedly involved in bungling elections, it did not make any demand on it.

IEBC, however, declined the key request by Nasa to drop the technology service provider, OT-Morpho and Safran and the ballot printer Al Ghurair.

The Commission has also declined to hire a fresh team of 290 returning officers, saying there is no time to train them for the repeat election. Instead, IEBC offered to use its permanent staff as returning officers (ROs) in order to ensure that they are accountable.

“Due to limited time, the commission will not be able to recruit, train and deploy but will use its permanent employees as ROs for accountability purposes,” the reply addressed to NASA executive director Norman Magaya also read.

IEBC Ezra Chiloba will stay put as the commission has refused to fire him and 11 other officials. The commission said that none of the officers was found to have committed any criminal acts.

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