Political parties pay day here as Treasury opens purse

By Abdikadir Sugow

Kenya: Leading political parties will be laughing all the way to the bank with funding from the Political Parties Fund, starting this financial year.

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and The National Alliance (TNA) will get the lion’s share of the payments.

The United Republican Party (URP) and The United Democratic Forum (UDF) are also in the running for a significant share of the funds.

John Harun Mwau’s Party of Independent Candidates of Kenya (PICK), which has about 20 county assembly representatives, is also expected to secure funding. The funds will be distributed every year over the next five years.

Budget allocation

The Registrar of Political Parties, Lucy Ndung’usaid the distribution of the funds would be based on the approved budget allocation and the votes garnered by each political party in the 2013 General Elections.

The following are excerpts of an interview with Ms Ndung’u. 

Question: What percentages of the annual funding will the political parties get and what is the rough estimate for all the political parties?

Answer: The Political Parties Act, 2011 establishes the Political Parties Fund to be administered by theRegistrar of Political Parties. Section 24 of The Act provides that the sources of the Fund should not be less than 0.3 per cent of the revenue collected by the national government as may be provided by Parliament and contributions and donations from any other lawful source.

Q: What does the law say about how the funding should be distributed amongst the parties? How much will each party get and who is qualified?

A The Act provides under section 25 that the funds –95 per cent, be distributed proportionately by reference to the total number of votes secured by each political party in the preceding General Election and five per cent for the administrative expenses.