Development partners supported the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with over N5 billion in the conduct of the 2015 general elections, a report has said.
This is contained in the INEC 2015 General Elections Report that was presented to the public by the acting Chairman of INEC, Hajiya Amina Zakari, on Wednesday in Abuja.
According to the report, N5, 207, 260,433 was provided by nine development partners to support some activities of the commission.
The report said that the sum of N165 million ($1m) was provided by the Ford Foundation to support Business Process Re-design (BPR) and Voter Education.
It also puts UNDP/DGD Grant at N177,045,935.55 ($1,073,005.67) to support Election Management System (EMS) and training for security officials.
The sum of N13,986,060 from the Open Society for Initiatives for West Africa (OSIWA) was also received to support prosecution of election offences and gazette of election regulations.
The report further revealed that the sum of N1,525,129,488 was used to support voter education and enlightenment from EU, through UNDP/DGD.
The report noted that the sum of N10 million from UNDP/GDG was for sponsorship of pre-election and post election workshops for accredited observers.
The UNDP/GDP, according to the report, also provided the sum of N2,896,118,940 for the sponsorship of INEC engagement with relevant and strategic stakeholders.
It noted that N114 million was received from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) for training.
The MacArthur Foundation also supported INEC’s civil education and elections monitoring through Yar’Adua Centre with N264 million ($1.6 million).
It added that the commission got fund from International IDEA for preventing conflict and electoral violence totally N41,980,000 (209,900 EUR)
It puts exchange rate at N165 per dollar and N200 per EUR as at the time of the donation.
The report, which did not state how much commission spent in the conduct of the elections, showed that the sum of the sum of N108,851,683,313.93 was appropriated for the 2015 election.
It also advised the commission to revisit the issue of delineation of constituencies and creation of additional Polling Units and see to their implementation ahead 2019 general elections.
On e-voting, the report advised the commission to work with critical stakeholders, consider the prospects of introducing electronic voting, which is currently prohibited by law.
“This could take the electoral process to a higher level,” the report added.
Follow Us