Greece embassy clears only four for IEBC Athens trip
By Rawlings and Zadock.Aangira, July 22, 2022
The Embassy of Greece only cleared four individuals to visit the firm printing ballot papers in Athens .
People Daily has established that although 12 people submitted their applications to travel to the Greece-based Inform Lykos Firm, only electoral commission Vice-Chair Juliana Cherera (pictured), Azimio representative Ben Agina and his UDA counterpart Anthony Mwaura and religious leaders representative Rev Joseph Mutie, landed in Athens yesterday morning to inspect the last part of printing of the presidential ballot papers.
Sources said the Greece Embassy denied others visa because the number was too big and that the printing firm was not comfortable with a high number of delegation visiting the premise.
“We really do not know why they have denied some visas. I think maybe because they thought that the number is too big,” said the source.
This comes even as police yesterday morning arrested three foreigners at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) with material suspected to be ballot papers.
The three were grilled and their statements recorded by Airport DCI boss Geoffrey Kathurima yesterday afternoon. They have been detained at JKIA police custody.
According to Kathurima, detectives detained the three, one of them a Venezuelan, with what is suspected to be ballot papers. “The three are being grilled by the Airport police. Detectives have involved IEBC as they seek to establish what they are, the origin and the consignee,” Kathurima said.
However, IEBC refuted the claims regarding the arrests.
In a Tweet on its official page, the electoral agency said reports that the foreigners were in possession of ballot papers were false.
“Information circulating that security agencies at JKIA have detained ballot papers allegedly imported into country outside the indicated schedule of election materials is fake. The correct position is that the commission yesterday received stickers to aid the labeling and distribution of election materials,” the tweet.