The electoral commission is enlisting the services of auctioneers to recover Sh400 million from politicians who lost election petitions against it in court.
The amount, flagged by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, is to be recovered from the Sh1 million in security deposits paid in court by the petitioners challenging the election results declared by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for various electoral positions.
IEBC chief executive, Mr Hussein Marjan, revealed before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly that the commission turned to the auctioneers following a go ahead from the Office of the Attorney-General.
This was after the lawyers entrusted to recover the amounts from the politicians, encountered difficulties that included among others, limitation in accessing security for deposit in election petitions, lethargy in pursuing costs and the absence of judgment debtors.
“We are currently in the process of procuring auctioneers to recover the monies owed to the commission as awarded by the court in election petition cases that were ruled in our favour,” Mr Marjan told the committee.
The other challenges encountered by the lawyers are delay in execution, stay of the effecting of the court orders on appeal by petitioners, delays in taxation and absence of the judgment debtors.
There is also the case of surrogate litigants who file petitions on behalf of politicians to cushion them against award costs and absence of the prequalified list of auctioneers to recover the costs.
Auctioneers, Mr Marjan assured the committee, will be paid a percentage of the amount they collect, “which is about 1.5 per cent.”
“We have employed a lot of effort in recovering the amounts but it’s not yielding the desired results. That is why we went the route of auctioneers on the advice of the Attorney-General,” Mr Marjan said.
This is exemplified by the fact that of the over Sh400 million owed to the commission, the lawyers have managed to collect only Sh6.8 million from the election petition losers.
