IEBC puts 2017 elections budget at Sh40 billion

The cost of the 2017 elections is set to hit Sh40.2 billion as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) moves to raise the number of polling stations by 41 per cent and register eight million new voters.

The money which the agency hopes will be allocated in the next two financial years, will nearly double the Sh24 billion spent in the 2013 polls.

Election of president, governors, senators, Members of the National Assembly, women representatives and ward representatives are set to be held in August 8 next year.

“Instead of the 31,000 polling stations that we had last time, the polling stations are going to increase to about 44,000 if we are going to register an additional eight million,” said the IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba.

“Additional polling stations mean additional voter identification kits, additional results transmission gadgets, it means additional manpower- you must have six polling officials at each polling station, and those will have to be paid.”

READ: IEBC hit by cash crunch ahead of voter registration exercise

A budget plan in the Election Operations Plan which was released Thursday shows that the commission is seeking Sh20.8 billion in the fiscal year beginning July and Sh19.4 billion in the next year beginning July 2017.

The elections will fall at the beginning of the second year and the IEBC has asked the Treasury to pay the entire amount for the two years in the upcoming Budget.

“Owing to the IFMIS e-procurement process, the commission will negotiate with the Treasury and Parliament to ensure that funding for the activities to be implemented or paid for in August 2017 is availed [sic] in the preceding financial year,” the electoral plan said.

The Sh40 billion is expected to put a further strain on the Treasury which is grappling with revenue collection.

A high recurrent budget fuelled by the public wage bill and repayments for loans taken up by government have continued to exert pressure on government finances, shrinking the share of money available for development spending.

Mr Chiloba said that they are in talks with Treasury to secure the funding but are yet to receive a commitment from the government that they would get the full amount requested.

The allocation request will also have to be scrutinised by Parliament when the Budget proposals for 2016/17 are presented. Attempts to get a comment from Treasury CS Henry Rotich over the subject were unsuccessful as his phone went unanswered.