IEBC doubles voter registration clerks after financial boost

Kenya’s electoral body has doubled the number of clerks to handle the voter registration exercise that kicks off on Monday, after foreign donors stepped in to fill a financial gap.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said it will now involve 5,700 voter registration clerks up from the 2,878 it had initially planned to enlist, owing to a shortfall of Ksh2 billion.

IEBC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ezra Chiloba said that the agency had received Ksh153 million from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), enabling the doubling of clerks who will register voters using biometric kits.

The European Union (EU) has also committed Ksh560 million to the agency in the period leading to the General Election, next year.

IEBC had requested for Ksh2 billion to fund the exercise, only to be allocated Ksh500 million.

However on Thursday, the commission got a boost from the European Union with a grant of Ksh567 million.

The agency targets to register 8 million new voters before the polls on August 8th 2017.

In 2013, a total of 14,337,399 voters were registered but only 12,330,028, an 86 percent representation, voted. A total of 108,975 were invalid.

The voter registration exercise will be carried out in two phases with the first phase (in Kenya) set to begin on February 15^th, 2016 and end on March 15^th, 2016

The registration of Kenyan voters in Diaspora will take place between March 10^th and 24^th, 2017.

Speaking during the unveiling of the Election Operations Plan (EOP) 2015 – 2017 in January, IEBC chair Ahmed Issack Hassan said that any country with 3,000 Kenyans residing there qualifies as a polling station.

The voters in the Diaspora can only vote for the President and a referendum.