IEBC gets Sh2bn more for voter registration, education
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission officials register voters in Nakuru in March. PHOTO | FILE
Preparations for next year’s general elections are set to enter the homestretch after the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) received an additional Sh2 billion.
The money made available in the supplementary budget tabled in Parliament last week is expected to finance voter registration, electoral operations and voter education.
Other priority areas, according to the electoral agency, are partnerships and procurement of ICT tools.
Overall, the approved supplementary estimates now stand at Sh21.1 billion from the previous Sh19.3 billion for the year ending June 2017.
“The upward adjustment on current expenditure is on account of provision for the operation of the new Elections Law 2016,” Treasury secretary Henry Rotich says in the revised budget document.
Electoral reforms
The IEBC plans to increase the number of polling stations to 44,000 from 32,000. That means the electoral body requires extra electronic voter identification kits (Evids) and transmission gadgets.
The supplementary allocation has set aside Sh315 million as send-off package for the current nine commissioners led by chairman Issack Hassan.
In mid-September, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law the Election Law (Amendment) Bill, which brought on board a broad range of electoral reforms, spelt out plans for the exit of officials and appointing of new ones. This set the stage for the exit of embattled IEBC commissioners.
The new law also set a deadline of December 8 for the IEBC to procure all electoral kits, meaning that the electoral agency had to do direct procurement.
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