Parliament hands IEBC Sh12 billion for repeat poll

From left: IEBC Vice Chairperson Consolata Maina, Chairman Wafula Chebukati and Commissioner Roselyn Akombe Photo:File

The electoral agency has received an additional Sh2 billion to organise the repeat presidential election on October 26.

This brings to Sh12 billion the total amount the agency has so far received for the exercise.

However, this came as Opposition candidate Raila Odinga withdrew from the race, accusing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of failing to carry out reforms to ensure a credible election.

The supplementary report awarding IEBC the money was tabled in the National Assembly.

This came as the Opposition urged Speaker Justin Muturi to stop all House activities until Jubilee and NASA agree on contentious issues.

An ad hoc committee had initially approved Sh10 billion, which the Cabinet endorsed. However, IEBC would later ask for additional funding.

“The committee recommends an increase of Sh2 billion recurrent expenditure for management of electoral process programme.

This increment is for the Kenya Integrated Elections Management Systems (KIEMS),” reads the report of the committee chaired by Kipkelion East MP Joseph Limo. IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba, who appeared before the committee last Thursday, had asked for Sh3.8 billion.

The commission told the committee it had already signed a Sh2.4 billion deal with Safran and Morpho to upgrade the 40,883 KIEMS technology used in August for transmission of results.

The budget will be used, among others, to hire poll officials, procure election materials and technology as well as advertising and transport.

A total of Sh2.4 billion will be spent on the 300,000 election officials. Each polling station will have three clerks.

IEBC will also use another portion to pay allowances of police officers who will secure the 40,883 polling stations.