Photo: PSS/ Nairobi Star

Kenya's parliament.

THE Treasury has allocated Sh430 million for the running of political parties and at the same time delinked the kitty from the IEBC.

This means that the office of the Registrar of Political parties will be independent financially. In the previous allocations which started three years ago, funds for the Registrar of Political Parties have been factored under the electoral commission.

Out of the Sh430 million allocated to the office of the registrar, Sh250 million will be shared by the registered political parties. The balance will be used to run the office including paying salaries for employees and other expenses related to administration of political parties. Treasury allocated Sh400 million to the political parties for the 2010/2011 financial year and Sh312 million and Sh200 million in the years 2011/2012 and 2009/2010 respectively. This was the first allocation in the country's history as the law providing political parties to get cash from public coffers was enacted in 2007.

Last November, Auditor General Edward Ouko tabled in Parliament audited accounts of parties showing that most of them had poor financial management and unwillingness to provide full disclosure of their sources of revenue. Ouko in his report said most political parties are far from attaining proper financial management through openly declaring their revenue and how they spend what they get.

He faulted all political parties for flouting the Political Parties Act by failing to declare all their sources of funds for the financial year 2009/2010. According to Article 25 of the Political Parties Act (2011), 95 per cent of the fund should be distributed proportionately by reference to the total number of votes secured by each political party in the preceding general election. Five per cent is for the administration expenses of the kitty.

A political party is not entitled to receive funding from the kitty unless it secures at least five per cent of the total number of votes at the preceding general election. A party will not receive funding if more than two-thirds of its registered office bearers are of the same gender For IEBC, Treasury has allocated Sh17.5 billion which includes Sh3.7 billion for voter registration while Sh122 million has been set aside for voter education.