Few Weeks To Election: FG Yet To Approve N75bn INEC Budget

The Federal Government has yet to appropriate the remaining N75bn out of the N120bn budgeted for the conduct of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

This, according to social commentators, lawyers, and other concerned stakeholders is already hampering the INEC’s preparations for the much awaited elections.

Saturday PUNCH learnt that INEC had estimated that it would need N120bn to prepare for the elections, but only N45bn was appropriated by the Budget Office of the Federation in 2014 budget, leaving a shortfall of N75bn.


The House of Representatives had recently raised concerns over the general elections, saying that adequate funding and security would determine the credibility of the polls.

The House Committee on Electoral Matters said it had resolved to summon the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to brief the lawmakers on the preparedness of the commission to conduct the poll.

Chairman of the committee, Mr. Jerry Manwe, in an exclusive interview with one of our correspondents, said while Nigerians expected INEC to conduct credible polls, they were not asking questions about the funding available to the commission and the “disturbing insecurity situation in some parts of the country.”

Manwe said, “We expect a credible, free and fair polls, but this will again depend on funding of INEC and security.

“My committee will summon Jega to brief us on the INEC’s preparation for the elections. Jega has to come and meet with the committee because there are sensitive issues we have to look at, one of them is insecurity.

“Funding and security play a role in the credibility of any election. So, we will have to look at all these with the INEC chairman.”

In June, the House had raised the alarm over alleged shortfall in funding of INEC, especially as regards the general elections.

After going through the proposals for the 2014 budget, the committee said it found out that of the N120bn the commission proposed for the general elections, the Budget Office of the Federation only made a provision for N45bn.

The committee noted at the time that the approved N45bn left a balance of about N75bn.

“Of the N120bn that INEC proposed, only N45bn was given to the commission by government. It means that the commission is short of a huge difference of N75bn. As the committee on electoral matters, our work is to alert the relevant authorities on our findings and the implications for the 2015 elections,” the committee had warned in June.

Manwe had expressed doubts that the situation would have improved remarkably.

The International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based advocacy organisation, in a report titled: “Nigeria’s dangerous 2015 elections: Limiting the Violence” released on November 21, 2014, also claimed that dwindling allocations to INEC was already hampering its preparations towards the 2015 elections.

According to ICG, one of INEC greatest challenges arises from funding gaps.

It said, “In 2011, the commission was given

N85bn (then approximately $515m) from a special fund that enabled it to conduct that year’s elections successfully.

“However, in 2012, its allocation dropped to N35bn (some $225m) and then dropped further to N32bn (about $200m) in 2013. This year (2014), the commission had estimated it would need N93bn ($560m) to prepare for the 2015 elections, but it was appropriated only N45bn ($272m). The reduced funding and the inconsistent manner in which it is disbursed have hampered some of the commission’s preparations.”

The ICG noted that inadequate funding had affected the storage of voters’ data.

Explaining difficulties with equipment for updating the voter register, INEC Chairman, Jega, had said, “The major challenge was storage. For the last three years, every time we prepared our budget, we requested funding to create a facility in order to appropriately store our equipment. Regrettably, we never had this funding requirement met, and the way the equipment was stored really left much to be desired.

The ICG, in the report, gave this as one of the reasons INEC had not been able to produce a “clean” voter register few months to the elections.

The spokesperson for the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, said, “On the issue of funding, the commission is engaging the authorities and the response is encouraging; we must state that clearly. We are expecting an invitation from the National Assembly to appear before it as regards this issue.

“The funding of an election is not usually in the election year. Like I said, we are meeting with the authorities and releases are being made. There is no shortfall of funding anywhere. We don’t know where the figures being peddled come from and how it is being calculated.”

On financial constraint being the reason for the poor distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards, Idowu said, “Clearly and categorically, it is not true. We didn’t distribute the cards at the same time.

“As regards the issue of timing, it is a function of the budget. We have certain number of days at the polling unit level. It does not make economic sense to spend endless days at the polling units.

“All over the country, we are using about 350,000 people, paying them about N2bn per day. How can that be budgeted for? We don’t have the luxury of shedding off that kind of money for many days because we also have to look at the big picture.

“Many people are looking at the microscopic picture. For how long can we pay N2bn per day? That is why we said we would spend three days for the exercise. It is good to have a model that will save costs. That is why we said we are distributing the cards at the local government offices.

“We cannot keep these workers at the polling units for days because we cannot keep spending billions of naira every day. It simply cannot be budgeted for, it doesn’t make sense.

“We do not see any possibility that the election would not hold because of lack of funding. We should be optimistic that the elections would come and go without any hitches. The economic condition will not affect the election process, since the will is there.”

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