2015: INEC to monitor campaign funds

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said his commission would monitor campaign funds in the forthcoming 2015 general elections in the country.
Jega made this disclosure at an interactive session with editors and news directors of media houses in Abuja.
He said: ‘We will monitor campaign funds. A unit under election and party monitoring was recently created by INEC to monitor campaign funding, which was not there in the 2011 election.”
He further revealed that there are other development partners that work with INEC in this direction such National Democratic Institute  (NDI).

The INEC boss also said the N45 billion INEC’s 2014 envelope budget sent to National Assembly by the Budget Office is far less than what the commission requires for the conduct of 2015 elections.
Blueprint recalls that INEC had requested for N93 billion in the 2014 Appropriation Bill to conduct the 2015 elections. He said that fund needed by the commission to conduct elections seemed much but justifiable.
“Our figure may appear huge but we can defend every aspect of it,” he said.

He stressed that the commission’s request had always been granted by the National Assembly.
“We are optimistic that we will get our fund before 2015,” he added.
Jega equally disclosed that there the commission would use card readers in the elections to forestall any form of electoral malpractice during the exercise.
“Comprehensive review of voters’ register is under way. Plans have been concluded to issue all duly registered voters with chip-based permanent voters, which will be swiped with card readers in the 2015 elections to ensure 100 per cent verification and authentication of voters.”

“The batteries of the card readers can last for 12 hours and each polling station will have two of them; so that if one fails to complete the exercise, the other can serve even if not fully charged.”