IEBC has said it may be unable to conduct verification of voters in the wake of a Sh4.5 billion shortfall ahead of the August general election.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission told MPs it requires Sh1.3 billion for the verification.
The commission sought Sh2.3 billion to settle pending bills of which Sh1.3 billion is in respect to court awards and Sh798 million for ICT.
Acting CEO Marjan Hussein told the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee that without the money, the commission would only provide three BVR kits in wards.
“If you don’t allocate us the budget, it would mean we go the ward-based way as we did with the mass voter registration. If there is more money, we will deploy more resources,” he said.
He spoke when the commission justified additional funding provided in the first supplementary budgets for the current financial year.
The commission said Kenyans who missed a chance to register in the Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration still have room to be listed.
Eligible Kenyans can still walk to the IEBC offices across the 290 constituencies to be listed until February 28 when voter registration is set to end to pave way for audit of register.
“There are BVR kits at all the Huduma Centres. We will provide three kits at each constituency office. We know some ID cards are still being issued,” Marjan said.
He said the commission, owing to the cash shortages, has now embarked on de-duplication of the newly registered voters ahead of the audit.
Under de-duplication, the commission would run the newly registered voters through the old register to detect any double registration.
Marjan defended the request for court awards saying they project the figures may jump to Sh3 billion after the general election.
“We used an estimate based on the costs incurred in 2017. The request is a third of what we incurred. We can use historical events to estimate the budget,” he said.
Marjan said the additional amount would be best if allocated, but gave a window the commission could seek the additional budget after the general election.
This was even as MPs raised concerns with the ever-increasing costs in terms of legal awards, at state agencies run by top lawyers.
JLAC chairman Muturi Kigano said IEBC legal bills are the highest in the country, considering they have the best brains in election laws.
Should IEBC be granted the request for Sh4.5 billion, the total budget for the August polls would have shot to Sh40.9 billion—spread in two financial years.
Of the Sh40.92billion budget for the elections, Sh22.02 billion was allocated during the 2021-2022 financial year and Sh18.9 billion budgeted for in the 2022-2023 financial year.
However, the commission in the 2021-2022 financial year was allocated Sh9.8 billion leaving a deficit of Sh12.2 billion
On the audit, Marjan said although the law requires the audit be carried out at least six months to the election, only one firm tendered and it was non-responsive.
He said the commission has floated a fresh tender and will use the other provisions of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act to get an independent credible audit firm.
Tharaka MP George Murugara, a member of JLAC, asked the commission to use a simpler way for verification of voters’ details such as using mobile phones for a small fee.
However, Marjan said for voters to verify their details, they will have to present their biometrics using the BVR kits to correct their details if they were not captured correctly.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
