Kenya's August 8 elections on course after IEBC gets $204m

Kenya’s electoral body is now in a better financial position to hold the August 8 general election, after Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich allocated it $204 million.

This adds up to $388 million after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) received $184 million in the last financial year. The IEBC had asked for $429 million after increasing the number of polling stations from 31,000 in 2013 to 44,000.

In February last year, IEBC received $5,528,420 from the European Union to finance voter-registration.

In a recent interview with The EastAfrican, the commission’s chief executive, Ezra Chiloba, said that the only way to avoid recurrent request for funds when elections are around the corner, is to set up an IEBC Fund, as provided for in Section 18 of the IEBC Act.

The fund he said, would introduce stability and predictability into electoral financing, create opportunities for receiving funding from other sources, ensure greater accountability in elections funding and make the Commission truly independent.

However, Mr Rotich in his budget statement revealed some anomalies in the Jubilee government’s promises as per the 2013 manifesto.

Mr Rotich said that while the government has achieved several milestones, there are still some challenges such as insufficient and expensive power with limited access, a century-old railway, limited road network and port capacity, poorly equipped security forces, high maternal and child mortality.

Other challenges he said include a poorly managed education sector, inadequate social protection for the poor and vulnerable, and disharmonised pay for public servants.

Mr Rotich also said that only 2.9 million new households have been connected to electricity, contrary to 3.7 million households that President Uhuru Kenyatta mentioned in his State of the Nation address in mid-March.

The cabinet secretary said that more than 5.2 million Kenyans have been connected to electricity compared with 2.3 million people in 2013.
“In four years, we have connected more Kenyans to the grid than all the years since independence. Today, more than 2,282MW of power is available on the national grid compared with 1,664MW available three years ago,” he said.

Also in question, is the Jubilee promise to create one million jobs per year for the youth, following revelations by Mr Rotich that the government has created 2.5 million jobs in four years.

But the government is banking on its promise to improve the country’s transport infrastructure, with the flagship being the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line. Mr Rotich allocated $721 million for the SGR, of which $148 million will go to the completion of Phase I, $569 million to the construction of Phase II, and $4 million for the relocation of people along railway lines.

“We know that once completed the SGR will help to integrate domestic markets, link special industrial zones and bring global export markets closer home,” said Mr Rotich, who reiterated that the Nairobi-Mombasa line will be inaugurated on June 1.

“Overall the budget was fairly low key, which was to be expected in an election year.  Some of the measures announced may well be viewed as electioneering measures but it remains to be seen if they have that effect,” said Nikhil Hira, tax leader at Deloitte East Africa.
In the meantime, the IEBC chairman, Wafula Chebukati, last week gazetted August 8 as the date of elections allaying fears that the polls could be delayed due to inadequate preparations and poor funding.

The 2010 Constitution provides that the elections must be held every second Tuesday in the month of August after every five years, but the IEBC has fallen far behind its set timelines, especially on the issue of procurement.