The country’s electoral body owes lawyers who defended it in petitions challenging the 2022 general elections outcome, a whooping Sh1.94 billion.

Documents tabled before MPs shows that as at June 30 2023, the total accumulated pending bills accrued by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) amounted to Sh4.85 billion, with 90 per cent of the bills being legal fees.

This figure included the Sh1.94 billion owed to law firms which were involved in petitions challenging the outcome of the 2022 general election.

Part of this amount includes Sh569.3 million spent by IEBC to hire 38 lawyers to defend the commission in the petition filed by Azimio La Umoja leader Raila Odinga who contested the outcome of the presidential election. The court later upheld President Ruto’s victory.

IEBC Chief Executive Marjan Hussein Marjan admitted to MPs that 90 per cent of the pending bills comprise legal fees which the commission is yet to settle.

Pending bills

While appearing before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to respond to audit queries for the financial year 2021/2022, Marjan told the MPs that irrespective of whether the lawyers represent them in court or not, the commission has to hire them to prepare for any eventualities.

He told the MPs that although the commission has hired four lawyers as part of its staff, they are not able to deal with all the petitions as they are spread across the country.

He said: “The bulk of the pending bills is actually legal fees as about 90 per cent is made up of the fees arising from petitions that have been filed which must be dealt with as they have a timeline.”

He added: “After elections and once the petitions have been filed, we must have a panel of lawyers to assist the commission to do its job. The lawyers’ fees were capped after the 2017 election and this is what guides us. However, when we are dealing with other legal matters, we have the Advocates Remuneration Order which the lawyers use and this is not capped and lawyers come up with their own figures.

The Commission’s Director for Legal Affairs Chrispine Owiye defended the money owed to lawyers who defended it in the presidential petition saying, the country saved much more as a repeat presidential election would have gobbled upto Sh12 billion. He said: “If the IEBC was to lose the petition, we would go to a fresh election and thus would have cost us about Sh12 billion.”

Challenging elections

The documents show that apart from the presidential petition, the commission also incurred Sh56 million to hire lawyers for the 12 petitions challenging elections of governors across the country.

Some of the counties that had petitions included Kirinyaga, Narok, Garissa, Malindi, Mombasa, Kajiado, Tana River, Nyamira, Busia, Homa Bay and Makueni.

The commission incurred a further Sh9.3 million in petitions challenging the election of senators, Sh13.9 million in petitions challenging election of Woman Representatives and a similar amount defending the election of Members of the County Assemblies.

The commission also incurred Sh146.2 million on petitions challenging political parties’ lists, MPs were told.