POLITICAL parties have raised concerns over the continuous underfunding of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN).
This comes after National Assembly speaker Peter Katjavivi on Friday said of the N$421,9 million allocated to the commission, there is a shortfall of about N$60 million.
Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) president Mike Kavekotora says Katjavivi is thereby implying that the upcoming elections will not be free and fair.
“Free and fair elections are constitutional provisions,” he says.
Kavekotora says although the speaker mentioned this in parliament, he could rather have informed the minister of finance and public enterprises that they are violating the Constitution.
“I don’t think the budget is so tight that N$60 million cannot be made available. It simply shows how ineffective the speaker is in terms of his negotiation skills,” he says.
Kavekotora says immediate intervention is necessary.
“There is no way it can be concluded that there is a shortage of N$60 million, therefore let us run elections.
“The elections will be questionable,” he says.
Kavekotora says the ECN’s plan to rent cars from private individuals to be used during elections does not come as a surprise. “The ECN never has enough vehicles. But it poses another question: Are you telling me government cars cannot be used? If so, something is wrong,” he says.
He says the government is not accounting for its assets, and he would not be surprised if the state does not know how many vehicles it has.
Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah says he supports the speaker’s motivation for the government to allocate more money to the commission. “We all know that for people to vote, it depends on transportation, given that Namibia is a vast country,” he says.
Kamwanyah says it concerns him that the country does not have enough money and resources to ensure that voters are allowed to exercise their constitutional rights.
“We need to ask ourselves as a country why we don’t have enough vehicles. Is it simply because of funding allocation or because of misallocation in terms of priorities?” he asks.
Kamwanyah says the government should reallocate the funds allocated to the Ministry of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs to fill the gaps faced by the ECN.
“There is no threat of war. I think this is a chance to use that budget to ensure that every person votes on that particular day,” he says.
During his budget motivation presentation, Katjavivi said the initial funding requested for the 2023/24 financial year was N$330 million, which was reduced due to other equally competing national priorities.
“This includes the initial budget indicative ceiling of N$152,8 million. That means there is a shortfall of about N$60 million. This shortfall could be reduced based on the availability of vehicles from the government garage pool and other offices, ministries and agencies,” the speaker said.
He said the commission would require about 1 500 vehicles during the process of voter registration.
“Securing vehicles is crucial in conducting any electoral process, and the general registration of voters is no exception,” he said.
As a result, the commission would have no choice but to hire a pool of vehicles from various government garages, as well as from members of the public to compensate for any possible shortfall, Katjavivi said. He said the commission is required to recruit, train and deploy
7 850 registration officials, including youth ambassadors, supervisors, team leaders, registration officers, IT technicians and administrative support staff.