IEBC says extra polling stations to create 100,000 jobs

Nearly 100,000 extra people will be hired to preside over next year’s General Election following plans to create an extra 12,000 polling stations to ease congestion that could lead to voter apathy.

Ezra Chiloba, the chief executive of the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC), informed Parliament last week of the plan to increase the polling stations to 44,000 from current gazetted 32, 000.

This will create demand for more polling clerks, presiding officers and their deputies in what will cost the electoral agency billions of shillings in pay.

“The increase of polling stations to 44,000 is necessary if we are going to register an additional 8 million voters,” Mr Chiloba told Parliament’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee last Thursday.

Each polling station will be manned by a presiding officer, a deputy preceding officer and the six clerks.

This means IEBC will require 352, 000 workers on the voting day, up from 256,000 that were hired during the 2013 General Elections.

The commission reckons it will require Sh4.4 billion to pay the polling staff on top of Sh3.29 billion it will require for the fresh voter listing that will happen for 30 days between February and March and will involve 30, 000 clerks.

It will also require another half a billion to hire 15, 000 clerks for 30 days to inspect the voter register ahead of the August 2017 general elections.

The cost of the 2017 election is set to hit Sh40.5 billion. Mr Chiloba said additional polling stations mean additional electronic voter identification kits (Evids) and additional results transmission gadgets.

The agency wants Sh3.5 billion to buy Evids and result transmissions kits that broke down in the 2013 poll, leading to suspicion of rigging.