Political parties funds law faces amendment as budget slashed

By JUMA KWAYERA

KENYA: A fresh controversy is brewing with regard to the amount of money the Treasury should release to the Political Parties Fund.

This follows the release of Sh205 million, instead of Sh2.6 billion, to the Registrar of Political Parties for disbursement to parties that took part in the March 4 General Election and garnered more than five per cent of the total vote. The low funding and controversy arising from the poll tallies released by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has added impetus to demand to review the Political Parties Act.

Uncertainty over which parties qualify for funding has generated unease with the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs Samuel Chepkonga calling for foolproof, inclusive criteria.

Plans are underway to retool the Political Parties Act and the Elections Act to expand the criteria for funding. Although the Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u told The Standard on Saturday that she was already tabulating the figures of the amounts to disburse, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the exercise will be put on hold till the matter is addressed by Parliament.

Legal impediments

The perceived legal and logistical impediments to entrenchment of democracy have set in motion a move to amend to the Constitution and the Political Parties Act (PPA). Already, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-funded Political Parties Collaborative Forum (PPCF) has proposed the repeal of the clause that pegs funding on the presidential results. Instead, PPCF Chairman Col Benjamin Mwema, says the criteria should be either proportionate ratio pegged on percentages or parliamentary representation to widen the scope of funding.

“The five per cent clause in the PPA locks out small parties,” explains Col Mwema, “Article 4 of theConstitution proclaims Kenya a multiparty state. This does not mean bi-party or tri-party state. We need genuine political competition for democracy to grow and that is why we want the smaller parties to be funded.”

His organisation has been active in peace building following the 2008 post-election violence. He says the bid to expand the threshold for funding is to minimise the risk of political marginalisation of ethnic groups.

Contacted, Speaker of National Assembly Justin Muturi, who is currently out of the country, acknowledged he is aware of the proposed amendments. Mr Muturi points out the changes will escalate political heat on the floor of the House.

“They have mentioned that to me. But my advice is they have to be strategic in their approach,” he told The Standard on Saturday. “It will not be easy given that the political parties are in competition. The fewer the better.” Ms Ndung’u concedes that her hands are tied by the controversial provision on funding, but remains non-committal on repeal of the clause. She says that the contemplated changes to the Act will affect the time when money will be disbursed.

“We are tabulating the figures based on the results we got from IEBC. Unless the law is changed, we will go ahead and pay,” Ms Ndung’u says. “It is clear in the Constitution on who qualifies for funding. However, I sympathise with the parties that are not in coalitions because all of them did not meet the criteria for funding.” The registrar is agonising on how to allocate the Sh205 million she has so far from Treasury. The figure falls far short the 0.3 per cent of the Sh870 billion of revenue collected in the last fiscal year.

Amount to set aside

 If the Constitution were followed, Treasury would set aside about Sh2.6 billion to the Registrar’s office annually. In the current set-up and if the allocation is to be determined on coalition, then Jubilee would pocket Sh1 billion, CORD Sh950 million and Amani Sh500 million.

When she questioned why the allocation had reduced, Ndung’u says, Treasury’s explanation was that disbursement of funds was pegged on priorities. She laments Treasury and the Budget Office consider parties funding a “non-priority item”.

“I have written to Treasury to tell them to distribute the money as required,” the Registrar points out. “They said the allotment of funds goes by needs that at the moment, political parties funding is not one of the key needs.”

She concurs that the five per cent presidential vote tally requirement will undermine smaller parties and give leverage to the bigger ones.

According to Chepkonga, who is also the MP for Ainabkoi, the law as it is and the ambiguities in the IEBC documents have exposed grey areas that require amendment to empower the Registrar of Political Parties to executive her mandate without controversy. “The law limits funding to parties that garnered at least five per cent votes in the presidential election,” says Chepkonga. “We have parties that did not field presidential candidates, but got more than five per cent representation in Parliament.”

The MP acknowledged having received the proposed amendments but his committee has not sat to review them. “We want to interrogate the report IEBC gave. There are gaps that might affect the funding. There are anomalies in the IEBC poll tallies we want addressed before we turn our attention to the Act on party funding,” Chepkonga, a lawyer by profession, says. One of the crafters of the amendments, lawyer Omweri Angima, told The Standard on Saturday that the delays by IEBC to publish the final tally, especially the failure to tabulate the results according to parties, has raised fears that the bigger parties can use their numerical strength and financial muscle to stifle the entrenchment of democracy.

What to get

“IEBC is expected to provide the benchmarks to be used in determining what each party gets. Also, the pre- and post-election coalition agreements may be disregarded. IEBC delayed releasing the final tallies in the hope that the law would be amended to make such information confidential,” says Mr Omweri, the CMD programmes officer.

“The five per cent threshold had been contemplated to rid the scene of briefcase parties and misappropriation of funds. However, leaving the discretion of the Registrar of Political Parties has deprived the law of the value it had been expected to add.”

UNDP and CMD, which sponsored the amalgamation of 14 laws into the Election Act 2011 now in use, seek to liberate the smaller parties from the “tyranny of numbers”, the registrar’s discretion and the indifference of IEBC. When Treasury unveiled this year’s budget, it announced that the country collected Sh870 billion in revenue. Based on the constitutional provision that 0.3 per cent of the revenue be set aside annually for political funding, they are entitled to approximately Sh2.6 billion.

Based on the performance in the March 4 polls parties under Jubilee are entitled to approximately Sh1 billion, have garnered 50.07 of the total vote, followed by Cord affiliate parties which had 43 per cent of the vote, while the Amani coalition would bag the rest, which leaves out more than half of the 24 parties that fielded candidates at various levels penniless.