The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission(IEBC) has revealed that financial constraints and legal battles are a major hindrance in discharging their mandate ahead of the 2022 General Election.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Justice, Legal and Human Rights, IEBC CEO Hussein Marjan said low budget allocation has affected audit of the ICT system, update of the voter register and review of the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS).
“All programmes are competing for same limited resources that are not even available,” he said.
In the past, the commission had indicated plans to re-use the 2017 KIEMS kits during next year’s election despite complaints arising from the same citing lack of funds.
The commission is currently tendering for the audit of the system, a process that might end in May next year, barely three months to the polls.
On registration, Marjan said the electoral agency will kick off mass registration of voters next month targeting 25 million people.
He added that IEBC also plans to increase polling stations to 53,000 up from 40,883 in 2017.
He noted that the commission has registered 145,000 voters since 2017 yet this is a continuous exercise.
He attributed the poor voter registration to low turnout, lack of budget for the exercise and insufficient civic education.
In the new financial year 2021-22 the commission was allocated Sh14.95 billion for the elections.
This includes Sh2.7 billion for mass voter registration, which should be launched nationwide this December.
Further, the commission said that it will be impossible to create new constituencies before next year’s elections.
The IEBC said the earliest the boundary delimitation can be completed is March 2023.
