IEBC gets Sh22 billion extra for August polls
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has received an additional Sh22 billion for the August polls.
The new funding announced by National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani while detailing his budget highlights and revenue raising measures for the 2022/23 financial year to MPs yesterday, brings the total allocation for the polls to Sh44.6 billion.
“In order to facilitate the 2022 General Election, we allocated Sh22.9 billion in the current Financial Year and proposed a further allocation of Sh21.7 billion in the Financial Year 2022/23 to the IEBC,” Yatani said.
Other than financing the General Election, the funds cover the review of electoral and boundary delimitation laws.
This includes undertaking boundary delimitation for the 290 constituencies, 1,450 county assembly ward and mapping of the 26,000 registration centres.
The commission had proposed to increase the polling centres from 40,883 that were gazetted in the 2017 General Election to 53,300.
IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati’s push for more money was backed by chief executive Marjan Hussein Marjan in February when he appeared before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
At the time, the committee, chaired by Muturi Kigano (Kangema) was considering the supplementary budget for the 2021/22 financial year Marjan warned that failing to provide the necessary funding to IEBC would hinder effective preparation for the General Election.
“We appeal for consideration by this committee for funding to ensure that the commission is not negatively affected in its short-term and long-term functions and operations,” Marjan told the committee.
Yatani said Sh321.5 million will go towards delimitation of electoral boundaries up from 102 million in the current Financial Year while Sh1.24 billion for electoral information and communication technology down from Sh5.9 billion for 2021/22.
Voter registration and electoral operations gets Sh14.55 billion up from Sh11.75 billion in the 2021/22 Budget and general administration planning services gets Sh5.1 billion from Sh4.1 billion.
