Court dismisses CORD’s petition against audit tender

By Ben Chumba

The High Court has dismissed a petition by CORD challenging the decision by IEBC to award KPMG tender to audit the voters register.

High court Judge Chacha Mwita while throwing away the petition said what was filed by CORD is different from the tender published in a gazette notice by IEBC.

In December, last year the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was stopped from awarding a tender to audit firm KPMG to review the voter register.

The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) had gone to court to challenge the decision to award KPMG the tender claiming the audit firm had no capacity to audit the register.

And after months of legal battle, the court has struck out a petition. Justice Chacha said the motion by CORD is incompetent and was filed in a hurry and therefore raised questions of the law.

Cord had moved to court to challenge the tender awarded to KPMG on December 16 after it defeated 12 other companies in the bid to scrutinize 15.85 million listed voters.

Through lawyer Antonny Olouch, Cord had sued the IEBC claiming that the tender award did not involve a professional and reputable firm to conduct an audit.