We Need N305 Billion To Conduct 2023 Elections – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission has proposed N305 billion as projected expenditure for the 2023 general elections.

INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, revealed this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriation at the National Assembly on Monday.

Yakubu also disclosed that the electoral body had suspended the Ekiti East bye-election indefinitely, having failed four times to conduct the election.

The INEC chairman visited the Senate on invitation by the lawmakers to present the estimate of funds required by the commission to conduct the 2023 elections ahead of the expected passage of the 2022 budget by both chambers of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Yakubu told the lawmakers that INEC had already received N100 billion out of the amount required for the elections while also carrying that the N305 billion is different from the N40 billion yearly budget of the electoral body.

Yakubu told the lawmakers, “The commission made a submission through the executive being part of the executive body. We made a submission for N305 billion for the 2023 general elections in a very comprehensive 22-page document with 260 budget lines.

“In submitting the executive proposal to the National Assembly, the sum of N140 billion was made available to INEC as a one-line item in the budget and as usual, we broke it down and submitted same to the committee that oversights INEC in both the House and the senate.

“The N140 billion was broken into two, we take it that N40 billion is our regular budget as an agency of Government and N100 billion was the first tranche of the 2022 budget and we have gone ahead to make provisions accordingly.

“For the N40 billion annual budget including in that are also elections that we are supposed to conduct particularly off-season elections. It may interest the committee to know that we have 8 bye-election pending; three Federal constituencies and five State constituencies. In fact the last vacancy occurred only last Wednesday following the death of a member representing Jiwa West in Kaduna State.

“What we have done is to look at the activities that we have to conduct before the general election. There are activities that must be concluded. For instance, if you are going to replace some of the critical facilities like ballot boxes, voting cubicles, these things must be done before the election.

“Party primaries must be conducted and concluded before the election and names of candidates submitted, registration of voters would have to be concluded before the election. Printing of the permanent voter’s card would have to be concluded before the election and then some of the critical election technology for the 2023 general election must be concluded and procured before the election,” he said.