• A law firm associated with former Attorney General Githu Muigai will pocket Sh34.8 million.
• The Sh1.9 billion pending bill incurred in the 2022 election alone, raised the commission's outstanding bill to Sh3.8 billion as at June 30, 2023.
Image: /EZEKIEL AMING'A
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission spent Sh1.9 million to mount a legal defence in the 2022 general election, documents show.
President William Ruto and opposition chief Raila Odinga's presidential petition at the apex court used the largest chunk, with the commission spending Sh569 million to hire lawyers.
IEBC chief executive officer Hussein Marjan on Monday pleaded with Parliament to help the commission get the money to pay the lawyers.
In the Ruto and Raila legal battle at the Supreme Court, the commission engaged 37 law firms.
A law firm associated with former Attorney General Githu Muigai will pocket the lion's share of IEBC's Sh569 million presidential petition legal fees.
His firm, Mohamed Muigai LLP advocates, will receive Sh34.8 million from the IEBC.
According to the commission’s documents submitted to the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, Ngeri, Omiti and Bush Advocates will receive the least amount of Sh3.8 million.
Raila, who lost the August presidential election to Ruto, had challenged the polls outcome at the apex court.
The Martha Koome-led court later upheld Ruto's victory and threw out Raila's team evidence.
From the commission’s documents, the electoral agency also spent Sh56,030 million to hire lawyers for the 12 petitions challenging elections of governors.
Counties that had petitions included Kirinyaga, Narok, Garissa, Malindi, Mombasa, Kajiado, Tana River, Nyamira, Busia, Homa Bay and Makueni.
The Sh1.9 billion also consisted of Sh9.2 million Senate petitions, Sh147.5 million cases involving Members of National Assembly and Sh13.9 million petitions filed against three woman representatives.
The commission also spent Sh113.9 million to hire lawyers against the 79 petitions filed against MCAs.
The Sh1.9 billion pending bill incurred in the 2022 election alone, raised the commission's outstanding bill to Sh3.8 billion as at June 30, 2023.
“The commission confirms that the existence of the pending bills continues to adversely affect the budgetary provisions for subsequent periods because some of them have to be paid as first charge in accordance with the National Treasury’s directive on the treatment of the pending bills,” Marjan told the committee.
“The commission has made several efforts to secure budgetary provision to facilitate settlement of the bills in addition to settling them as first charge.”
Furious MPs, however, questioned the justification of billions spent on legal fees alone, demanding the commission table justification for the huge expenditure.
Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera termed the expenditure ‘a rip off’ of the taxpayers money.
“Even if I was the Cabinet Secretary and I am asked to release all these billions to legal fees, I can develop cold feet,” he said.
“Is it an issue of competence that make us to incur such huge bills? What is the justification?”
But the commission's director of legal services Chripine Owiye claimed the expenditure was necessary to avoid spending even more in a repeat election.
Owiye said if the commission were to lose the case, Sh12 billion or more would have been spent to conduct a repeat presidential election.
“This was a presidential election, if we didn’t have good strategy we would not have won the case,” Owiye told the committee chaired by nominated MP John Mbadi.
“If the commission were to lose, the country would go to a fresh presidential election and the cost would be Sh12 billion or more.”
The 2017 presidential election repeat cost taxpayers Sh12 billion.
Owiye said some law firms were engaged even before the elections so they had ample time to scan the elections environment and identify, in advance, potential areas that could end up in court.
Marjan, in justifying the spending, said the commission has no option but to defend itself when sued.
“Once a petition is filed, we must have a panel to represent the commission. There is no way we are going to be sitting when we are being sued,” he said.
“The commission must defend itself.”
Owiye also decried the understaffing in the IEBC legal department that has forced them to procure services of external lawyers.
“The Attorney General advised commission can’t allocate advocates from the State Law Office because IEBC is an independent commission, the commission only has four active in-house lawyers,” he said.
But MPs were not satisfied with the explanation and demanded a report of the pending bills vetting committee that scrutinised the bills.
“It will be interesting to get the report of Pending Bills Verification Committee," Mathioya MP Edwin Mugo said.
“Are you satisfied yourself with the amounts?” Chepalungu MP Victor Koech asked the CEO.
The commission also spent Sh41 million for dispute resolution complaints on candidates registration and Sh3.2 million towards dispute resolution complaints on candidate registration technical counsel-drafting affidavits at Bomas of Kenya.
It engaged lawyers in the list of oaths files totalling Sh11.8 million and Sh163 million being the outstanding amounts on judgments and costs awarded against the commission.
Marjan was appearing before the team to respond to audit queries for the 2022-23 financial year.