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Canada funds Kenya's biometric voting registration kits

Canada funds Kenya's biometric voting registration kits
Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
22 Aug 2012

The Canadian government plans to fund Kenya's acquisition of 15,000 Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits through a concessionary loan.

The kits are expected in the country in the next two weeks after the two governments struck the deal, ending weeks of speculation after allegations of corruption led to the cancellation of a tendering process.

An offer by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to have the US fund the acquisition of BVR kits was rejected by Kenyan officials early this month.

Kenya will now receive 15,000 kits as opposed to the 9,000 kits the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) wanted to acquire at $46 million.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC) Abdikadir Mohammed told reporters the 15,000 BVR kits will now cost $54 million, but the cost will be borne by the government, and not the cash strapped IEBC

“They (IEBC) were complaining of us giving them Ksh.3.9 billion ($46 million) , now they have that amount to utilise for other functions because this acquisition is being done using resources outside their budget ,” said Mohammed.

The government-to-government arrangement was reached at after members of the public and politicians decried plans to revert to manual registration using the Optical Mark Reader.

Code Incorporated, a Canadian firm which supplied electronic voter registration kits during a 2010 pilot project is expected to be awarded the tender.

Kenya's acquisition of the kits is a race against time as the deadline for registration of voters draws near. The Elections Act, which states that voters registration should be complete 90 days before elections will be amended to reduce this to 45 days.

The elections will be held on March 4, 2013. This is touted to be Kenya's most complicated elections, since the public will not only have to vote for president and members of parliament as has been the case, but also senators, governors, woman representatives and youth representatives.

Pressure is on the government to deliver a free and fair election to avoid a repeat of the 2008 post poll violence which led to the killing of 1,300 people and the displacement of 300,000 others.

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