The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) says the timetable for the governorship elections
in Bayelsa and Kogi states, which will hold later in 2019, will be released
during the week.
Mahmood Yakubu, the commission’s
chairman, disclosed this on Monday when he appeared before a joint committee of
the national assembly on INEC for the budget defence session.
“This year, we are going to
conduct two end-of-tenure elections into the offices of the governors in Kogi
and Bayelsa states,” Yakubu said.
“Let me seize this opportunity
here to say before the end of this week, INEC will issue a timetable and
schedule of activities for the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa
states.”
The INEC chairman further said a
total of N45.5 billion was released as the commission’s regular budget in 2019.
He said while over N21 billion is
for personnel cost, the overhead cost and capital expenditure are N4.2 billion
and N1.6 billion respectively.
According to him, “in 2019, the commission
is proposing the sum of N21.8 billion 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 N17.5billion and you
have the social contribution, National Health Insurance, contributory pension,
and employee compensation of N4.3billion.
“The commission is proposing the
sum of N17.7 billion under the electoral expenditure to cover such activities
as monitoring party primaries, conventions, voter education, stakeholder
meeting legal expenses and others.”
He said this is the same as what
the commission got in 2018 and “only slightly better than the envelopes of several
years before them.”
“In 2017, it was N45billion; in
2016, it was N45billion, and in 2018, it was increased marginally to
N45.5billion and the same envelope was presented to the commission in 2018 and
2019,” he said.
“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.”
Yakubu said INEC’s budget in 2019
is the same as what it got in 2018 and “only slightly better than the envelopes
of several years before them.”
“In 2017, it was N45billion; in
2016, it was N45billion, and in 2018, it was increased marginally to
N45.5billion and the same envelope was presented to the commission in 2018 and 2019,”
he said.
“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.”
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