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By this point the pattern has grown tiresomely familiar. The Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) submits it’s budget for the next general election to the Parliamentary Budget Committee or to the Treasury, both institutions shoot the Commission’s budget down, on account of the amount requested and, lack of funds in the national budget. The IEBC then revises its budget downward, sends it back for approval by the Treasury, or Parliament who review the revised budget then send it back to the IEBC for more cuts.
But according to the Finance Minister, Njeru Githae, this pattern may have come to an end. Earlier in the week he announced that the Treasury had allocated 17.5 billion shillings to the IEBC to run the next election, and that this was enough to for the Commission to carry out a credible election, stating emphatically that that the Treasury would not be “adding funds to what has been allocated to the IEBC.”
17.5 billion shillings may seem like a reasonable sum to run the next election until it is reviewed against the IEBC’s initial request for 41 billion shillings. In this light 17.5 billion shillings is less then half, actually only 41% of what the IEBC’s initially stated was necessary to run the next election. After Parliament rejected the Commission’s first request for the 41 billion shillings, the Commission revised the budget to 35 billion shillings, and later to 31 billion shillings. Now it seems that the commission will have make do with much less.
Several of the Commissioners, including the IEBC’s head and it’s deputy have indicated that though a cheaper election may not be unthinkable, the results of cuts to the Commission’s budget for the next election could be damaging, painful and even more expensive in the long run. The IEBC has stated the proposed budget of 17.5 billion shillings would result in reduction of the number of polling stations, extending/staggering the period over which the election is held, and reconsidering biometeric voter registration (no mention of reduction of salaries or allowances).
I’m all for a leaner election budget but not at the expense of a credible election process. However given the public’s perception of the spending of various commissions, it is difficult to imagine that there is much sympathy for the IEBC or about the budget cuts that it has to make. Also at 31 billion shillings (or USD $422 million) the budget requested by IEBC would be three times the budget of the South Africa election – a larger country, with a bigger economy and more registered voters – so its difficult to see the justification for the amount requested. On the flip side the Treasury’s insistence that there is no more money in the national budget for the election seems disingenuous and rings of misplaced priorities, after all the Treasury did manage to find funds to increase the gratuity of MPs and the President, a cost that will run in to billions of shillings.
At this point it is difficult to determine which side is right regarding the budget for the next election, the government or the IEBC. All the same it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the IEBC’s proposed budget.
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