…Says Its Funding Has Not Been Impaired

 The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it will release the schedule of activities for Kogi and Bayelsa State governorship elections before the end of the week

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who made the disclosure Monday in Abuja while appearing before the National Assembly Joint Committee on INEC, to defend the 2019 budget estimates for the Commission, said that the elections would take place separately later in the year.

Said he: “This year we are going to conduct two ends of tenure elections into the offices of the governor in Kogi and Bayelsa states, meaning that towards the end of the year, we are going to conduct governorship elections at different times in the two states.”

“Let me seize this opportunity here to say that before the end of this week INEC will issue a Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states.”

He noted that the Commission has been receiving same budget envelope amounting to N45 billion in recent years adding that the same amount of N45.5 billion was provided in 2017 and 2018.

He stated: “For 2019 we were presented with an envelope of N45.5 billion naira as our regular budget. This is the same envelope as in 2018 only slightly better than the envelopes of several years before them.”

“In 2017 it was 45 billion, in 2016 it was 45 billion naira and in 2018 it was increased marginally to N45.5 billion and the same envelope was presented to the Commission in 2018 and 2019.”

He also noted that in terms of performance of the Commission’s budget in the previous year, INEC was fully funded.

“I will say for the 2018 financial year we were fully funded; we were on the first line charge so in terms of the releases from the Executive to the Commission we were fully funded,” he said.

He further gave a breakdown of the proposed N45.5 billion naira, which he explained were in four components.

According to him, “The first one is personnel cost and in 2019 the Commission is proposing the sum of N21.8 billion naira to cover consolidated salaries for 16,455 career employees of INEC and 51 political office holders, making a total of 16,506 employees of the Commission in 2019.”

“The personnel cost is broken into two subheads, you have the consolidated salary of N17.5 billion and you have the social contribution, National Health Insurance, contributory pension, and employee compensation of 4.3 billion naira”.

The second component according to Mahmood, is the overhead cost put at N4.2 billion naira while the third budget head is for electoral expenditure.

“The Commission is proposing the sum of N17.7 billion naira under the electoral expenditure to cover such activities as monitoring party primaries, conventions, voter education, stakeholder meeting, legal expenses, etc,” he explained.

The Chairman noted however that “the biggest expenditure item is the conduct of elections for which we are earmarking the sum of 3.3billion for the foreseen and unforeseen elections.  The 2019 general election is in effect over but for INEC the conduct of elections is an all-year-round activity.”

He said the fourth and final budget head for which N1.6 billion was earmarked was for capital expenditure.

In his comments, Chairman Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Suleiman Nazif (PDP Bauchi North), commended the Commission for a job well done in the just concluded 2019 general elections. He noted that though there were concerns that should be addressed going forward.

Senator Nazif called on his colleagues and all stakeholders in the electoral process to work towards the passing into law of the amendment to the Electoral Act in a bid to strengthen the electoral process.

Chairperson of the House Committee on Electoral and Political Parties Matters, Hon. Aishatu Dukku, while addressing the meeting said that there was the need for all stakeholders to be carried along in the 2019 INEC budget.

She stated that the process for the amendment of the Electoral Act would be given due consideration as soon as the 9th National Assembly resumes plenary.