The electoral commission is engaging auctioneers to retrieve Sh400 million from politicians who lost their court challenges against it.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu highlighted that this sum is to be recovered from the Sh1 million security deposits made by petitioners contesting the election results announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for various positions.
IEBC CEO Mr. Hussein Marjan informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly that the commission decided to enlist auctioneers following approval from the Office of the Attorney-General.
This decision came after the lawyers tasked with recovering the amounts faced obstacles, including difficulties in accessing the security deposits for election petitions, sluggish pursuit of costs, and unavailability of judgment debtors.
“We are in the process of hiring auctioneers to reclaim the funds owed to the commission as directed by the court in election petition cases ruled in our favor,” Mr. Marjan explained to the committee.
Additional challenges faced by the lawyers include delays in executing orders, stays on court orders due to appeals, delays in taxation, and the absence of judgment debtors.
Problems also include the use of surrogate litigants who file petitions on behalf of politicians to avoid paying awarded costs and the lack of a prequalified list of auctioneers for cost recovery.
Mr. Marjan assured the committee that auctioneers will receive a fee of approximately 1.5 percent of the amount they collect.
“We have made significant efforts to recover these amounts, but with limited success. That’s why we turned to auctioneers on the Attorney-General’s advice,” Mr. Marjan stated.
This is evident from the fact that out of the over Sh400 million owed to the commission, only Sh6.8 million has been collected from the petition losers.
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