IEBC protests after Treasury 93pc cut on voter listing budget

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has expressed concerns that planned mass registration of voters may delay after the Treasury cut its voter listing budget by 93 per cent.

The commission sought the help of the National Assembly after Budget estimates for the financial year starting July indicated that the it would receive Sh111 million for voter registration and other electoral operations, down from Sh1.7 billion.

This budget item will be scaled up to Sh3 billion in the year starting July next year and further increased to Sh16.6 billion in 2017 when the General Election is expected to take place.

IEBC chief Ezra Chiloba protested to the National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs committee, arguing that the commission needs more cash to continuously register voters and hit its target of listing 11 million voters ahead of the 2017 polls.

IEBC wants Sh2.7 billion for diaspora voter registration and Sh1.8 billion for local listing in the coming year.

“We need the money to roll out at least two voter registration drives in the coming financial year,” Mr Chiloba told the committee Thursday.

“Sh925 million will be spent on a month-long voter listing. The second phase will also require a similar amount, bringing the total for next year to Sh1.8 billion.”

IEBC, Mr Chiloba said, planned to spent Sh192 million to buy voter registration materials, transport for 30 days (Sh391 million), Sh190.9 million for wages of registration clerks and other expenses (Sh150 million) in each registration campaign.

Overall, the Treasury has cut the IEBC budget by nearly half to Sh3.7 billion from the current Sh6.2 billion. The bulk of the money is set for the commission’s recurrent expenditure. The commission wants to be given Sh13.7 billion.

The committee declined to push the Treasury to allocate IEBC Sh2.7 billion for diaspora voter registration, saying the polling agency had not developed a policy to guide the exercise.

It emerged that the IEBC had requested Sh200 million to conduct a study on the number of voters living abroad and their actual locations.

“We will allocate you an initial Sh50 million to start the process of developing the policy that will guide diaspora voting,” said Samuel Chepkonga, the chair of the committee.

Mr Chepkonga also directed the IEBC to rework its budget for voter registration, saying Sh925 million for one-month’s exercise was exorbitant.

The commission targets to list four million Kenyans in the coming year. Currently, Kenya has 14.3 million listed voters and IEBC wants to push this to 25.3 million by 2017.