As the current term of the LC s 1 and 2 comes to an end on July 14th 2023, the Electoral Commission Chairman , Justice Simon Byabakama, has asked Parliament to appropriate an additional 60.88 billion shillings to conduct elections for the lower councils throughout the country .
Byabakama also called for another ug.shs. 20bn to be included in the national budget for the Women Councils’ elections which were to be held in August 2022 .
Byabakama led EC officials was appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee now considering ministerial policy statements and budget lines for the various government entities under its mandate.
The EC Secretary, Leonard Mulekwa, asked Parliament to provide an additional Ug.shs. 7.29 billion shillings to operationalize the new Electoral Commission offices and stores in the 10 newly created cities .
“The EC is required to operationalize electoral offices in those new electoral areas by recruiting district election administrators.
The committee chairperson, Robina Rwakoojo, said the women councils’ election was critical since they form part of the Parish Development Model teams.
MPs expressed support for the EC’s budgetary requests noting that its meant to facilitate its statutory obligations amidst limited funding.
“Given that we all know we have limited resources, we advise you to consider activities that are adversely affected by non-funding. I, for example, suggest that you spend Shs11 billion to remunerate your staff and let political parties survive from their members’ contributions,” Fox Odoi Oywelowo (NRM, West Budama, North East County), stated .
