There will be zero tolerance to non-compliance at the IEBC in delivery of free, fair and credible polls, Commissioner Roselyn Akombe has said.
Speaking at Lilian Towers in Nairobi on Friday, Akombe insisted they have put in place radical changes in their new guidelines to ensure October 26 repeat polls are free, fair and credible.
The commission has dropped over 200 election officials including returning officers who made mistakes during the August polls.
“With these guides, we have vowed zero tolerance to non-compliance. That is why we have, for instance, dropped over 200 presiding officers who made errors in the previous election. We have also dropped some ROs that after vetting…they were not competent,” said she according to the Star.
She added the commission has a 10-point manual for its staff which will be the basis for conducting fresh polls.
“It is not that the staff we have do not know what to do….they have been told what to do and we expect things will be done differently.”
Akombe said they have settled for Dubai-based printing firm, Al Ghurair because the commission is constrained by time.
She explained NASA and Jubilee turned down an offer by the UNDP which had offered to procure for the commission a reputable printing firm.
Akombe said if they were to change Al Ghurair, it means no repeat polls will be held on October 26.
Printing of the Presidential ballot papers is set to begin by end of this week according to the commissioner.
In addition, all Forms 34A and 34B will be standardized to address discrepancies realized in the bungled August 8 polls.
The KIEMS gadgets will transmit both text and images. There will also be a complementary mechanism to avoid delays witnessed in transmission of results in the last elections.
And more importantly, Akombe said the commission will not be in a rush to announce the results like in the August polls.
Al result forms will be verified thoroughly before the final Presidential results are announced.
“We have seven days to announce the results. We shall not be rushed to announce no matter the pressure mounted on staff. All results will be verified at the constituency level before transmission,” stated Akombe.
On matters transmission of results, Akombe said they will still retain Safaricom to transmit results through its 3G network.
NASA had opposed use of Safaricom as the main service provider alleging it colluded with the IEBC and Jubilee to rig in the last polls.
However, Akombe insisted the telecommunication firms remains the best in network coverage throughout the country.
Further, about 11, 000 polling stations which had been mapped out last time by IEBC as lacking network coverage have reduced to 3, 000.
On the question of whether the commission is ready to conduct the repeat polls, she answered in the affirmative.
“If I were asked today whether the commission is ready the answer would be ‘yes’,” she said posing “ but the question is whether the environment and conditions are conducive for the commission to conduct a free, fair and credible election.”