The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) has finally met with lawmakers to kick-start the
process of passing the budget for 2019 elections.
The leadership of the electoral
umpire met with the house of representatives committee on electoral and
political parties matters in Abuja on Wednesday, regarding the N189 billion
budgeted for it to conduct the election.
President Muhammadu Buhari had
sent a virement request to the national assembly seeking approval of the budget
but the lawmakers were unable to pass it before embarking on recess.
Following calls to reconvene and
pass the budget, the national assembly leadership met with INEC last week to
consider the way forward over the matter.
Addressing members of the
committee, Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, defended the budget as what would be
enough to conduct the poll.
He said out of the N189 billion,
N134.4 billion will be used as operation cost while N6 billion was budgeted for
feeding security officials during the election.
He added that N27.5 billion will
be used for election technological cost while N22.7 billion will be for
administrative cost.
Aishatu Dukku, chairman of the
committee, said the lawmakers will be transparent in considering details of the
budget.
“It is important for us to
approach the budget proposal from both process and content perspective,” she
said, adding: “It is only by so doing that one can begin to unravel the
intricacies of the entire range of issues involved.”
She also said the committee hopes
the government would address issues that have to do with election funding
“unlike the previous budgets that were not productive in the entire planning of
elections.”
The commission subsequently met
with the senate committee on INEC over the same matter.
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