The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party has affirmed reports that they have not been sharing the Political Parties Funds with former coalition members in Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) and the National Super Alliance (NASA).
In a statement, ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna said that the move was occasioned by legal issues that have made former coalition members including the Wiper Party, Amani National Congress (ANC) and Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – Kenya (Ford Kenya) not qualify for the funds.
Sifuna quoted Section 25(2) of the Political Parties Act which requires that for a Party to qualify for funding, they must have at least 20 MPs, three senators, three governors and 40 MCAs elected on their ticket.
“Using this Criteria set out under Section 25(2) of the Act only two Parties, Jubilee and ODM qualified for the fund after the 2017 General Election,” said Sifuna.
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Further, the Registrar of Political Parties in distribution of the fund between the qualifying Parties ODM and Jubilee, is required to take into account the total number of votes received by a political party in the preceding general election.
Sifuna agreed that the parties were entitled to a share of the money for the Presidential vote that Raila got, but says the party has not been getting the money since the Registrar of Political Parties has been using the votes gotten in repeat Presidential election.
“However it is common knowledge that the Supreme Court nullified the results of the 2017 Presidential Election. On this basis, the Registrar of Political Parties argues she cannot take into account the August 8th 2017 Presidential results in distribution of the Fund. She has, unlawfully in our view, insisted on using the Results of the repeat election of October 26th 2017 which was boycotted by the NASA Coalition,” he adds.
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Sifuna says that the parties involved have never formally demanded the funds from ODM.
“We also confirm that to date, we have never seen or received any authenticated claim, quantified demand or even published audited accounts of any party be it Wiper, FORD-K or ANC indicating a debt owed by us,” he added.
The Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu told a parliamentary committee that the three parties (Wiper, Ford Kenya and ANC), are to blame for failing to come up with guidelines on how they were to share the political parties’ funding.
According to her, the coalition partners should have, after the General Election, crafted the regulations and have the same deposited at her office in the same way they had done with the coalition agreement.
“We have on several occasions advised them. Wiper has been writing to us and we have explained to them that after the elections they were supposed to provide us with regulations on how the coalition’s allocation would be shared. They have never done that,” Nderitu told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
In the last financial year, 2019/2020, Jubilee was allocated Ksh564 million of the Ksh871 million while ODM got Ksh363 million.
In the current 2020/2021 financial year, the two parties are supposed to get Ksh515 million and Ksh240 million respectively.
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