Over 50 officers at the electoral commission are in jitters following a major purge of officers accused of bungling the procurement of election materials in 2017.
An audit report has stirred fears of mass sackings, with more than half of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s staff based at the headquarters being subjected to disciplinary action.
The team led by Wafula Chebukati commenced a disciplinary process against 58 staff for their various roles in the tender award for supply of materials such as ballot papers and technology.
The move, according to IEBC, is as a result of last year’s internal audit report that criticized the directorates of finance, ICT, supply chain management and legal and public affairs whose officials the auditors recommended explain some of the decisions they made leading to possible loss of money.
Consequently staffs were given show cause letters from early this year even as claims emerge that those targeted are linked to former Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba who was fired.
“They gave us letters in January and this week they were grilling us. It’s like they are preparing ground to sack many people. The morale at the commission is very low,” a staff who has undergone the grilling told a local daily.
Those affected have expressed concern on the legitimacy of the exercise claiming it violates the commission’s human resource manual, with the committee failing to meet the threshold of gender balance.