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By Emmanuel Ovuakporie
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday said N2.7billion will be needed to conduct Kogi State election.
The Apex electoral body also decried the reduction of its budget from N45.5billion to N40billion in the 2020 Appropriation Bill under consideration at the National Assembly.
The Commission said that the N1billion proposed for conduct of elections would not be enough to execute the governorship and other off season elections next year.
INEC boss, Prof Mahmood Yakubu who disclosed this, said that apart from the governorship polls scheduled to hold in Ondo and Edo States, the Commission is expected to conduct not less than forty two (42) supplementary elections in different states across the country.
The Chairman alongside other officials of the commission were at the National Assembly to defend the budget proposal before the Joint Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives on Electoral Matters.
He said that whereas INEC had consistently been on an annual budget of N45.5billion in the last two consecutive years, its reduction by N5.5 billion might become a serious constraint on its operations. According to him, the N1billion earmarked for conduct of polls would also be deployed to Continous Voter Registration exercise ahead of the governorship polls in those two states.
He revealed that adequate provisions had been made in the 2019 budget for the governorship polls billed to hold in Bayelsa and Kogi States on November 16, 2019. According to him, the sum of N2.7billion has been earmarked for the said elections out of which INEC has spent N1.1billion so far.
He also said that INEC will be saving about N500million following its decision to combine the governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi with other pending supplementary elections in the two states.
The lawmakers had earlier taken INEC to task on its involvement in extra-budgetary expenditure and warned that it ought to seek approval for any change or virement on any item on the budget passed by the National Assembly.
He explained that the extra-budgetary expenditures arose out of exigencies of meeting constitutional timelines on several off season elections and did not exceed the budgetary provisions.