South African firm Face Technologies has denied it supplied faulty biometric kits for the elections in Kenya.
This comes as the just concluded general elections are being contested in court, with faulty technology is one of the focal points of the challenge.
According to the Standard Newspaper, the kits were tested by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KeBS) and were in perfect shape before their use on March 4.
“The Evids were assembled in China with components from US and China,” said Ian Minty, tender office executive manager at Face Technologies.
“They were tested upon manufacturing in the factory by the Kenya Bureau of Standards before issuance of the required certificate of conformity. They were also tested before and during training. No failures were reported.”
During the general elections it was reported that numerous polling stations across the country did not succeed in using the biometric system to identify voters.
A letter from the head of IT at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) noted there would be a problem with the new kits.
Dismas Ong’ondi, head of IT at the electoral body, wrote a letter to deputy commission secretary (support services) Wilson Shollei saying the devices were using different interface technology from the ones initially proposed by the IEBC.
He also noted that it would cost the commission more money to deploy a system that would be compatible to the ones supplied.
The electronic system that was put in place by the IEBC failed to deliver as expected. It is estimated it cost the commission KSh9.6 billion (US$112 million).
