[wanabidii] IIEBC :Praise the brewer and he will add water to the alcohol

Credibility not capacity.

That should be the new keyword for the IIEBC staff and commissioners.

Trying to place the  IIEBC tender saga in perspective I am reminded of one national politician who said "Maji imezidi unga"

while trying to trying to describe the wacky 2007 elections debacle with a disoriented hon Samuel Kivuitu unable to say

who the new president of Kenya was. 

The thing is there is simply no time to engage the biometric voting machines for upcoming general elections and our

overly politicized lifestyles has made the IIEBC big boys look somewhat lost in the noise. Tragic really.

The commissioners had done a somewhat commendable job.

The problem was immediately noticeable when IIEBC started asking for mega money to conduct elections. The point

being floated that mega money equated to better or fairer elections. Kenyans elections are plagued by a political

landscape of drama, schemes ,ethnic balancing and unknown content as key components of

leadership.

The problem problem for ordinary Kenyan has never been casting a vote... but what happens when the vote is cast.

 

With a little creativity the IIEBC can, should  and would be able to provide Kenyans with an affordable credible election
at a fraction of their mega budget.

To break it down

a) Online registration.

Now we don't mean the farmer to go to a cyber cafe and register their names there. No that.
We mean someone at the village can successfully register the farmer and no matter how much the farmer
tries again, he will not succeed to do another registration. Think about it.
Can the farmer be able to withdraw his cash from another branch in the next market. The answer is
no. The reason being that the banks are online.

Although the word manual election is floating around, nothing can be further from the truth. Technology is
at a place where it is impossible to double register, if only IIBC can open their eyes.
Verification of double registration can be carried out from the remotest part of Kenya using a mobile phone
even when there is no internet.

If there is a section of Kenya where you cannot make a mobile telephone call then i agree double registration can
be done there; but will be weeded at at compilation of master roll; with data captured on site .

b) Registration of voters

Why is IIEBC stuck on clerks like the old days of black register books. It is possible to engage
impartial persons to do registration of voters.

The issue of double registration does not arise! It is possible
to outsource banks and mobile money outlets like mpesa agents that are found in ever district to do this exercise
in a week at extremely low funding and absolutely no quality will get compromised.

c) Tallying

It is clear that the biggest problem with elections at 2007 was tallying, not voting.
This time around it is possible and very crucial to do immediate tallying and verification of totals at the polling stations.
As a matter of fact it is possible to relay immediate preliminary  votes not only to to the big screen as expected at KICC
but on every interested persons mobile phone.

Yes. Votes are not secret numbers that need sanitizing before release. The population can receive polling
station tally as it happens


The point is  there was never a better point in life for IIEBC to do an election than now.
 A secure online registration system can hardly cost 100 million shillings... inclusive of outsourced operators.

IIEBC primary preoccupation should be how to ensure their online servers have sufficient security to avoid penetration
and that their back up systems have sufficient redundancy should a primary online system fail.
(And believe you me that capacity is available or none of our banks would be  standing up amidst daily
global assaults from the ends of the earth )

My friends at ICT board of Kenya and every other ICT expert in the country will agree with me on every point.

As Kenyans, it is somewhat painful for the ICT industry to be treated to so much political drama while knowing
all too well what needs to be done.... after the policy papers have been agreed up on and placed on the table.

Peter Kamakia
Mitambo ICT Company
P.O.Box 25365-00100
Nairobi
Kenya
Tel 254720219320

But you know