Kenyan court gives go-ahead for Dubai based firm to print presidential ballot papers

Kenya’s Court of Appeal on Thursday dismissed a ruling made by the High Court that stopped the printing of presidential ballot papers to be used in the forth coming elections.

The five judge bench overturned the ruling blocking Dubai-based Al Ghurair firm from printing the ballot papers and said that public participation was not a must in the tender process.

“The judgement of the High Court dated 7th of July 2017, be and is hereby set aside to the extent 1. The court erred in finding that public participation is a mandatory requirement in direct procurement,” said Erastus Githinji, Court of Appeal judge.

The High Court had stopped the printing of the presidential ballot papers following a suit filed by Kenya’s main oppostion bloc, National Super Alliance.

The court found that NASA failed to prove its claim that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), was biased in awarding the ballot printing tender to Al Ghurair, agreeing with the ruling Jubilee Party that it could not purport to solely rely on newspaper cuttings as proof of its assertions without providing corroborative evidence.

The electoral body,had argued that there was that there simply was no time to re-tender for the presidential ballots and still hold elections on August 8.