The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) vice chair Juliana Cherera has gone after the commission’s chair Wafula Chebukati and accused him of unilaterally initiating the transfer of Returning Officers without following the legal channel of consulting other commissioners.
Filing an affidavit in response to Azimio One Kenya election petition aiming at disputing Chebukati’s presidential results, Cherera fingered Chebukati for spearheading the transfer of Returning Officers, who are permanent employees subject to transfers after five years.
“Returning officers are permanent members of staff at IEBC who could only be transferred after 5 years but Wafula Chebukati, in a departure from this transfer policy, transferred the ROs on 30th March 2022 without the approval of the commission,” she said.
Further, she claims that Chebukati failed to convene a meeting to appraise the commission on the implementation of the recommendation of the report on the independent audit of the register of voters by KPMG.
Cherera further faulted the IEBC chair for failing to complete the recruitment of the director of voter registration and director of elections.
Besides, She alleged that Chebukati failed to inform the commission that Lykos (Hellas) SA the printing firm /contractor in Greece was to print two sets of Form 34A being form 1 of 2 and form 2 of 2 each.
IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati
She says she discovered that when visiting the firm together with representatives of presidential candidates.
Cherera also accused Chebukati of usurping the role of the chairperson commission legal Committee, ICT Committee and deputy C.E.O Operations in complete disregard of good corporate governance.
The affidavit also fingered Chebukati for issuing unilateral press statements without consulting the commission.
Juliana Cherera alongside the other three commissioners split from the electoral commission and disowned Chebukati’s presidential results citing the opaque nature of the electoral processes enacted by the chair.
Addressing a parallel press on Monday, 15th August, at Serena Hotel, Nairobi, Cherera accused Chebukati of siding with UDA president-elect William Ruto to alter the results to favor Ruto.
