The National Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has revealed that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) owes lawyers a staggering Ksh 2.7 billion in legal fees for election petitions.
The parliamentary watchdog contends that the rising legal fees, currently listed as pending bills for various prominent City lawyers handling election petitions on behalf of the IEBC, may indicate potential misuse of public funds.
Lawmakers who reviewed the Auditor-General’s Report for the year ended June 30, 2022, regarding IEBC’s accounts have realized that a significant portion of the pending bills consists of legal fees accrued by the IEBC over the past ten years.
The Committee chair and Butere MP, Tindi Mwale stated that a thorough investigation will ensure public resources are used appropriately and restore confidence in the electoral body’s fiscal responsibility.
“As a committee, we have decided that a forensic audit was necessary to understand the full scope of these expenses,” said Mwale.
“We have also called for an investigation into the legal firms that have represented the IEBC in these petitions. We suspect that there may have been instances of fraud, with accusations pointing to exorbitant legal fees that appear to defraud public resources.”
IEBC CEO Struggles to Account for Debt
Appearing before the committee on Tuesday, IEBC CEO Hussein Marjan struggled to justify the large pending bill for legal fees.
He emphasized that the commission has no control over the number of election petitions filed in courts across the country.
While acknowledging that 90% of the pending bills are due to legal fees from these petitions, Marjan noted that they have a fixed timeframe for resolution.
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He explained that, despite pre-qualifying several law firms, the commission sometimes has to hire additional firms to defend them at various stages of the court process.
He further noted that although election costs were previously uncapped, following the annulment of the 2017 presidential elections, a cap was introduced.
This means that whatever is charged at the lower court, high court, and all the way through to the appellate court is now easier to determine.
Marjan Hussein Blames Treasury for Pending Bills
Citing the 124 election petitions lodged after the 2022 general elections, Marjan stated that the National Treasury did not allocate any budget to the electoral body for legal and compliance fees.
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He mentioned that the treasury advised them to wait until the number of petitions was determined before they would provide a budget.
“This budget never came. Despite facing around 124 election petitions and cases, we had to operate with a very small budget,” he explained.
“We relied on Article 223 of the Constitution, anticipating funding from the exchequer. We couldn’t simply sit back while being sued and not defend ourselves,” he said, while defending the high number of law firms engaged by the commission.
Further, the IEBC boss noted that despite the huge pending bill, the law firms had defended the commission and secured their election verdict, but lawyers and their law firms have yet to be paid for their services.
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