The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has floated at least 60 tenders over the past 17 months, despite lacking a full commission and awaiting the swearing-in of newly appointed members.
The procurement drive comes amid mounting pressure to begin early preparations for the 2027 General Election, even as a High Court order temporarily halts the onboarding of the new commissioners.
Since January 2023, the IEBC secretariat — under the leadership of CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan — has pushed forward with tenders for multi-year contracts on goods and services, ranging from indelible marker pens and security seals to medical insurance, cleaning, and repair services. Some of these tenders remain open, with others at various stages of evaluation or award.
This activity is unfolding despite the absence of commissioners, whose six-year terms expired early last year. A leadership vacuum has persisted since the controversial 2022 General Election, which saw a split within the commission, resulting in the resignation or removal of four commissioners.
The secretariat has continued to operate, although with limited legal capacity, raising concerns over the legitimacy of its procurement powers.
Among the recent tenders, one for IEBC-branded indelible marker pens was floated on May 23, 2025, with the deadline set for June 3.
Another, for official green security seals, is scheduled to close on June 4. A wider registration exercise inviting suppliers for various goods and services until June 2027 was launched on May 22, with a submission deadline of June 5.
While the legal dispute over the swearing-in of new commissioners lingers, Parliament has already moved forward with budget proposals for the 2027 elections.
According to Tharaka MP Gitonga Murugara, chair of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, the government has tabled a proposal to allocate Sh57.1 billion to IEBC, spread across three financial years: 2025/2026, 2026/2027, and 2027/2028.
If approved, this would make the upcoming election the most expensive in Kenya’s history — and one of the priciest in the world.
“The committee observed that the IEBC runs one of the most expensive general elections globally,” said Murugara. “The situation has been driven by high costs of election result transmission, foreign exchange losses, and emergency airlifting of strategic materials and staff.”
In the proposed budget, Sh9.3 billion will be disbursed in the first year, including Sh5.12 billion earmarked for pre-election activities and Sh800 million for expected by-elections in 20 areas.
Yet, without a legally constituted commission, core activities like voter registration, boundary review, and procurement of election materials face significant legal and operational hurdles.
The IEBC plans to register an additional 6.3 million voters, pushing the total electorate to over 28 million.
To achieve this, the commission says it will require 59,352 KIEMS kits. Of these, 45,353 kits from 2017 will be replaced due to obsolescence, while 14,000 kits acquired in 2022 will be reused to cut costs.
Despite these efforts, election observers and civil society groups have expressed concern that the absence of commissioners not only undermines transparency and oversight but also violates the Constitution’s requirement for a fully functional electoral body.
The IEBC secretariat, while pushing ahead with procurement, remains unable to legally execute some of the commission’s core functions — including conducting by-elections, recruiting senior officials, or making policy decisions.
