Nairobi — The Electoral Commission of Kenya intends to raise the number of constituencies from the current 210 to between 250 and 255, the chairman, Mr Samuel Kivuitu, said yesterday.

Kivuitu said some of the constituencies were too big. He said the exercise would be carried out by September, 2004.

Kivuitu was speaking at the election body's Anniversary Towers offices during the launch of the Geographical Information System (GIS) programme for the commission.

He said the GIS will enable the commission to work more efficiently unlike in the past when it depended on other institutions do the job.

"The demand for these maps has always been high, particularly during the periods of review of electoral boundaries and General Election," he said.

Kivuitu said the decision to create more constituencies would, however, depend on the outcome of the Bomas constitutional review talks where a debate on proportional representation with additional 90 seats is still under discussion.

He said the commission initiated the GIS project to automate its mapping function using GIS starting from the last financial year.

Kivuitu said the equipment, which included digitisers, plotters, GPS, scanners and graphics workstations, cost Sh40 million.