UDA gets lion's share of political parties' fund, ODM second

President William Ruto is the leader of UDA Party. [File, Standard]

President William Ruto's United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party will receive the lion's share of the Political Parties Fund.

According to the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, UDA has bagged Sh577 million, followed by Orange Democratic Movement (Sh308 million), Jubilee Party (Sh135 million) and Wiper Party (Sh72 million).

According to Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetangula, UDA has 145 MPs, ODM (86), Jubilee (28) and Wiper (26).

Others are the United Democratic Movement (UDM) 8, ANC (8), Ford-Kenya (6), KANU (6), DAP-Kenya (5), PAA (3), Kenya Union Party (3), UPIA (2), Maendeleo Chap Chap (2) and The Service Party (2).

In the Senate, UDA has the highest number of representatives with at least 32 of the 67 senators.

The Political Parties Act 2011 sets aside 0.3 per cent of the national government revenue to finance activities of political parties.

Nearly 50 political parties that participated in the August 9, 2022 General Election will benefit from the Political Parties Fund (PPF) as opposed to only two parties that were entitled to the funding from the Exchequer in the previous election.

The expanded criterion was due to an amendment to the Act through the Political Parties (Amendment) Act, 2022 that set out qualification threshold and criteria for distribution of the fund under section 24 of the PPA.

According to the law, 70 per cent of the fund is shared based on the total number of votes secured by each political party in the preceding general election.

Fifteen (15) per cent of the fund is allocated to political parties based on the number of candidates from special interest groups elected in the preceding general election.

Ten (10) per cent of the fund is shared based on the total number of representatives from the political party elected in the preceding general election.

Five (5) per cent is allocated for administration expenses.

"All parties qualifying for the fund must be accountable for their allocation and use it for purposes compatible with democratic principles as prescribed in the Political Parties Act, 2011. We expect accountability, transparency and prudent utilisation of the funds by the beneficiaries," Registrar of Political Parties Ann Nderitu said on September 21, 2022.