By Our reporter

09th Aug 2022

A look at the office bearers scheduled for election in Kenya shows that the grueling campaign and the final election exercise will produce 2,000 leaders, as opposed to about 360,000 leaders for Tanzania and about 1.5 million in Uganda. 

This, however, is not reflected in the cost of getting these leaders into their respective countries.

For example, Uganda spent about Shillings 618 billion on the 2021 presidential and local government elections, while Local Councils 1 and two cost about another Shillings 90billion. Tanzania, according to figures from the country’s Treasury, spends the least amount, having used Tanzania Shillings 331 billion (UGX 550 billion) on the 2020 general election that brought the late John Magufuli for a second term.

Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission,IEBC has budgeted for a possible re-rerun of the presidential elections. This was done to avoid a repeat of the shock the Treasury suffered in 2017 when a surprise fresh election was announced following a court ruling. Raila Odinga withdrew from the repeat elections, but the financial damage had already been done and the next government led by Uhuru Kenyatta had to deal with it.

This time around, the public is meeting Kenyan Shillings 44 billion ( UGX 1.43 trillion) for the whole process, slightly lower than what was finally spent on the two presidential polls in 2017.

The re-run cost Kenya Shillings 10 billion (about UGX 350 billion) at that time. While still an acutely higher cost than in any other country in the region, and a little more than twice the Ugandan budget of Shillings 700 billion (including the election of village and parish councils.)

Kenya’s Shillings 1.4 trillion budget is used to elect about 2,000 office bearers while Uganda has to elect 1.5 million people. “The actual conduct of the General Election involves activities of undertaking the election including Presidential run-off should need to arise and the swearing in of the elected leaders,” the Treasury document states.


Tuesday 9th August 2022 01:13:44 PM