IEBC says 2027 elections will cost Ksh.57.3 billion

Appearing in parliament on Thursday, IEBC CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan said that the commission's initial budget was slashed by the Treasury, posing a hitch in running a seamless election.

"The National Treasury allocated Ksh.49.75 billion, which is not adequate and translates to a deficit of Ksh.7.6 billion. The deficit will affect the Commission adversely in conducting the Elections," he said.

On his part, IEBC Chairperson Erastus Ethekon intimated that the commission is set to launch a continuous voter registration on September 29 .

He added that constituencies with by-elections can only access the services after the mini-polls are concluded.

This was seconded by Commissioner Ann Nderitu, who said that the registration also aims to achieve a 70% registration of the Kenyan youth.

"We will mobilize the young people at the grassroots level to register as voters. We will also do the mobilization online. We have a youth committee which will get to the youth organizations in Kenya. We also have Gen Z Vice Chair among us," she noted.

IEBC's Director of Legal Services Chrispine Owiye also noted that the Commission plans to register 6.3 million new voters by 2027.

"This number has been arrived at by science and population surveys. Voters in East Africa can vote with their ID cards while the rest use their valid passports," he noted.

He also asserted that the Commission has separated Administrative servers from Election servers to avert any possible anomalies in the polls.

"We have made a column for stray ballots, which did not exist in the Form 34As in 2022. This is in compliance with the Supreme Court decision of 2022," he added.

Commissioner Owiye added that the electoral body will conduct an audit of the voters register eight months to the election.

CEO Marjan however noted that the commission is concerned about the repetitive harassment and profiling of its staff members during every election cycle.

"We have seen our staff being killed every election cycle. You remember the case of (Chris) Msando?" he posed.

Msando was IEBC's ICT Manager and was killed a week before the 2017 General Election. Autopsy found that he was tortured and strangled to death.

The incident has since sparked a silent fear in the electoral body.