ODM Party broke, unable to run its operations

The biggest opposition party since its establishment, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party is on its financial knees and cannot run its operations effectively.

ODM party, which has scheduled grassroots elections, is unable to foot the expenses of the exercise due to the financial woes crippling the party.

The party’s Director of Elections and Suna East Member of Parliament Junet Mohamed confirmed that the party lacks financial strength and wants the National Treasury to disburse funds meant to finance party operations.

While speaking in Migori, Junet faulted the government of its financial woes saying it has disregarded the law by failing to remit the funds in the parties’ accounts.

“According to the law, political parties have a right to get a share of the national budget. Therefore the government has no right to deny parties that deserve the share of the budget,” said Junet.

His remarks were seconded ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna who told of the treasury CS Henry Rotich for failing to adhere to the Law.

“What we want is to have all our monies disbursed in totality. All our operations have stalled due to lack of finances,” said Sifuna.

The Political Parties Act 2011, which established the Political Parties Fund sets an allocation of not less than 0.3 per cent of national revenues collected must be allocated to political parties.

The treasury since 2015 has been allocating Sh371 million to political parties each year to date instead of more than Sh3.6 billion annually.