By Ikugbadi Oluwasegun
INEC has rejected the budget of N40 billion allocated to it, describing the sum as grossly inadequate to fund the affairs of the electoral body.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman presented its own draft proposal of N89 billion to the Senate Committee on INEC during the budget defence meeting chaired by Alli Sharafadeen Abiodun on Thursday.
At the meeting held at the new senate building, Yakubu explained that N40 billion would not be enough to cater for the financial needs of the commission in 2024.
He said N40 billion could only cover the personal cost of the commission, which has a workforce of over 15,000 personnel.
Further justifying the commission’s decision, the INEC boss told the lawmakers that due to the 40 percent peculiar allowance introduced by the Federal Government, and the cost of the Duty Tour Allowance (DTA) of its staff across the federation, the commission’s wage bill had risen to N36.5 billion. He stressed that by the time N36.5 billion is subtracted from the N40 billion, the commission would be left with almost nothing to fund its capital and electoral expenditure as well as overhead costs.
He also warned that the 2024 off season governorship elections scheduled to hold in Edo and Ondo states and the National Assembly bye elections for Ebonyi South and Yobe East senatorial districts might be jeopardised.
Other bye constituency elections that may be affected, according to the INEC boss are Akoko North East/Akoko North West Federal Constituency of Ondo State; Yauri/Shanga/Ngaski Federal Constituency of Kebbi State; Isa/Sabon Birni Federal Constituency of Sokoto State and Khana II State Constituency of Rivers State.
Mahmood said: “Our first priority is staff welfare; it goes beyond that, but it is a matter of human rights. But associated with the payment of salaries are the social contributions, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), group life insurance, employees compensation scheme and so on. When we pay salaries and social contributions, there is nothing for any other activity again, including the forthcoming governorship elections coming up next year in Edo and Ondo states.
“We also do electoral activities in February next year in which parties will commence the primaries for the governorship elections, and we have to be there to monitor the primaries. We have to do continuous voter registration, and make the cards available long before the elections, and there’s no provision for that. The Ondo primary will begin in April, and there’s no provision for that.
“By the time you talk about the DTA as provided by circular and you convert it to Naira and kobo, it crashes, given the exchange rate. So, under the overhead, we pay for all these, including issues like diesel for our generators because sometimes, we are almost always on generator not only in our conferences but also in our ICT server room.
“As a substitute to the inadequate N40 billion, the INEC chairman submitted another expenditure proposal of N89 billion, which was tagged as the actual need of the commission.
“We have submitted proposal C, which shows that we actually need N89 billion. So as I said, our budget for 2023 is practically N68 billion, so the difference actually is N21 billion, not N49 billion, and we have given a breakdown on how we intend to spend the money.”