Weak links of IEBC now clearly exposed

IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati. FILE PHOTO | NMG  

By CAROL MUSYOKA

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Summary

• The velvet-gloved fist of an effective chairperson becomes a critical requirement for the success of such a hybrid set up.

“Ten green bottles standing on the wall, 10 green bottles standing on the wall, if one green bottle should accidentally fall then nine green bottles standing on the wall.”

We sang that nursery rhyme faithfully as children to help us learn to count backwards and it would only end when the last bottle fell and there were “no green bottles standing on the wall”.

Commissioner Roselyn Akombe fell off in October 2017 and left six green bottles standing on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) wall.

In April 2018, Commissioners Paul Kurgat, Margaret Mwachanya and Consolata Maina fell off and left the chairman Wafula Chebukati, Prof. Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu as the last three standing green bottles.

I have opined before in this column about the uniquely complicated nature of the IEBC governance structure and I’m afraid I have to repeat myself once again.

The 2010 Constitution of Kenya was the result of many years of consultations and horse trading aimed at ensuring that the bogeyman of the time, former President Daniel arap Moi, would never be allowed to hold a country in a grip of singularly spectacular power again.

A key objective therefore was to establish strong and independent institutions in the form of constitutional commissions that could withstand the inevitable gale force winds of influence that a sitting government could potentially blow.

In their rabid quest for such independence, the drafters of the 2010 Constitution created a hybrid model of governance for the IEBC. Six commissioners and a chairperson would “serve on a full time basis” for one term of six years only according to the IEBC Act.

The mother Act expressly states in Section 11A that the chairperson and the commissioners shall be responsible for formulation of policy and strategy of the commission as well as oversight while the secretariat performs the day to day administrative functions and implementation of those policies and strategies.

But the Act does not expressly prescribe how formulation of policy and strategy transforms into a daily job thereby leaving a critical gap for interpretation or misinterpretation of how to keep a salary earning, body guard keeping, four wheel driving individual intellectually occupied for six years.

Section 10 of the IEBC Act creates the role of the secretary to the commission who, under subsection (7) (a), shall be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), under subsection (7) (c) shall be the accounting officer and, most importantly, under subsection (7) (e)(i) shall be responsible for executing the decisions of the commission.

READ: IEBC operates on a unique corporate governance system

So two centres of power are envisaged under the mother Act. First is the group of six commissioners and their chairperson who make decisions and second is the secretariat headed by the CEO which executes the same but remains the accounting officer when it comes to explaining how the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow has been spent.

I term it as two centres of power because both teams are actually present on a full time basis doing work. One is bound to step onto the toes of the other particularly where such work is perceived as falling within one’s remit.

The velvet-gloved fist of an effective chairperson becomes a critical requirement for the success of such a hybrid set up. The chairperson would delineate the specific roles of the commissioners versus the roles of the secretariat with a primary objective of ensuring that never the twain shall meet.

The chairperson would have to work hard to ensure that the two sides are working harmoniously and have to preside over regular meetings to check that the ship is on course, all hands are on deck pulling in the same direction and that the pistons are all fired up.

The chairperson would have to stand aside and not take an active functional role to enable him to be the independent arbiter that is required to keep this complex team in a hum.

You never find a conductor of an orchestra seated front left with the violinists, rather he is always up front, instrument free, looking across the entire semblance of players and guiding them to make music with nothing but a flick of his baton.

I am not privy to the internal workings of the IEBC commissioners and secretariat but the executive role played by the commissioners is a potential Gordian knot for a body that is also supposed to provide oversight on the secretariat. After all, in African proverbial tradition, you never send a hyena to watch over goats.