Election plans in jeopardy as supplier of KIEMS kits fail to sign contract
By Anthony.Mwangi, February 4, 2022Preparations for the August general elections are in jeopardy after the management of the firm awarded a tender to supply KIEMS kits failed to jet into the country to sign the final details for the deal.
Frans Gunnick the Managing Director of Smartmatic the Dutch Company awarded the tender to supply KIEMS kits did not attend the crucial meeting last week and gave no excuse for his absence.
The failure by the Dutchman to turn up for a crucial meeting to firm up on the contractual obligations, has further thrown the agency into turmoil with barely seven months to the General Election.
Gunnick had written to IEBC on 21st December on the Milestone Payment Plan of the third party licenses as agreed with the IEBC’s Contract Implementation Team.
Efforts to contact IEBC acting chief executive were futile as he did not respond to our numerous calls.
It now emerges that the electoral body is now trying to re-negotiate some items in the initial contract with the firm. The contract was signed in November 2021 . The commission has been blamed for floating the tender worth billions of money in 14 pages seen by the People daily.
The KIEMS kits tender has elicited varied reactions with tender wars escalating to the courts .
Disgruntled vendors are accusing IEBC of ignoring the local manufacturers and opting for expensive foreign companies with checkered history.
According to documents in our procession, Smartmatic aims to perform some tasks long after the elections are done in October 2022.
In the Milestone Payment Plan, Smartmatic intends to have Biometric Registration Software installed and acceptance tests completed by October 2022. Other crucial deliverables listed in October include, acceptance certificate, front end BVR software installation and acceptance test completed on Morpho Tablet as well as data migration acceptance certificate.
Other issues that have marred the tender process include the alleged exaggeration of the third party licenses.
Smartmatic, according to the contract with IEBC, charges 4.2 million USD which is higher compared to other bidders.
The licenses which would expire within a year include another one year MRZ scanning license, one year Ansible tower license, 1 year MDM on – premise license, and another year to Oracle Standard Edition and license.
Other licenses that are set to expire under a year include 10 months Power BI license , 19 Microsoft Windows Server 19 perpetual license .
Other softwares that would need installation, acceptance and rigorous tests include Voter Identification software, Results Transmission software, Front End software( EVV/I and RTS) on VIU tablets and Front End software (EVV/I and RTS) on Morpho tablet.