The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked the IEBC to reduce funds spent on paying for outsourced legal services for the Commission.

The Hon John Mbadi led Committee noted with concern that 85 percent of the Sh4 billion pending bills is meant for paying law firms hired by the Commission to represent it in court.

The Committee said it was outrageous for IEBC to spend Sh3.3 billion to pay for outsourced legal services with one notable law firm getting a giant share of more than Sh1 billion.

Speaking during a meeting with IEBC CEO Mr. Marjan Hussein Marjan at Parliament Building to examine the Auditor General’s Report, Hon Mbadi told the Commission to cut down on the budget for hiring legal services and instead make use of the seven advocates employed by the Commission. "I believe that the legal team you have is competent enough to provide legal services and save the Commission from spending huge amount of money to hire services of law firms," said Hon Mbadi.

According to the Auditor General’s Report for the Financial Year ending June 2021 tabled before the Committee, the IEBC spent Sh1.7 billion on routine constitutional civil cases and Sh50 million for paying for administering oath of secrecy for elections officials among other expenditures. The Committee questioned the criteria used by IEBC to procure law firms to represent the Commission after it emerged that two legal firms were preferred by the Commission in hiring of legal services.

"You have not convinced the Committee that there was fairness and competiveness in procurement of law firms and also prudence in expenditure of tax payers’ money," noted Hon Mbadi.

Mr. Marjan in his response explained that IEBC was using a huge percentage of its budget on paying for legal services because they were having so many court cases after the General Elections. "You are aware that Kenya is a very litigious country and so we are forced to battle so many court cases after the General Elections thereby paying a lot of money for hired legal services," he added.

On using the services of the seven lawyers at the Commission Mr. Marjan said, “The seven lawyers we have at the Commission are overwhelmed and cannot handle the many suits the Commission has been facing".

He also pointed out that there was transparency in procurement of law firms to handle court cases for IEBC.

Responding to the question on accumulated pending bills which was a matter of concern to the Committee, CEO  explained that the pending bills accumulated because the National Treasury was starving the Commission of money to pay for services rendered to the Commission by various firms.