Parties faulted on use of funds for minorities

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee party and Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) are in a spot over utilisation of funds meant for activities of special interest groups.

A report by the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) titled Political Parties’ Utilisation of the Political Parties’ Fund (PPF) says the parties have failed to use their monies to promote political participation of marginalised and minority groups in Kenya as per the law.

Office activities

The report also faults the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) for deploying its five per cent of the fund in office activities and little on programmes such as promotion of public participation.

The report by CMD also shows that 15 per cent of the said allocation was not utilised independently, despite the requirement of independent work plans and budgets.

As per Article 26 of the PPA 2011, a political party receiving public funding should allocate not less than 15 per cent of the money to promote representation in Parliament and in county assemblies for special interest groups.

The report, exclusively obtained by The Standard before its official release today, says that whereas parties are required by law to develop work and budget plans in order to receive PPF, it cites a legal lacuna since there is no requirement for them to account for the 15 per cent.

For instance in 2017-18 financial year, Jubilee Party’s total expenditure, including funds from PPF and other sources, was Sh515.7 million, which was spent on campaign and election (47 per cent), employee compensation (28), rent (18), training (3) and others (4) per cent.

In the same year, ODM’s total expenditure was Sh154.3 million which it spent on employee compensation (30 per cent), campaign (25), party policy and advocacy (11), bad debts (9), regional conferences (8) and other office programmes (17).

The law requires that political parties receiving public funding should utilise 15 per cent on special interest groups such as youth, women and people living with disability (PLWD), and other minorities and marginalised groups.

On the other hand, the Public Audit Act, 2015, requires that political parties receiving public funding should develop financial and activity plans for special interest groups.

According to the Act, the amount of money to be allocated to qualifying political parties is set at a minimum of 0.3 per cent of annual collected national revenues.

Of the allocated 0.3 per cent, 80 per cent is distributed proportionately relative to the total number of votes secured by each political party in the preceding general election.

The Frank Mukwanja-led CMD report shows that since its inception, PPF has not received the full 0.3 per cent entitlement.

“The current PPF administration whereby political parties are not allocated the full 0.3 per cent of nationally collected revenue and whereby some political parties have been asking for PPF from coalition partners' manifests, is recipe for aggravated institutional conflict,” the report reads in part.

Last year, ODM sued the government for not paying it Sh6.4 billion backdated to the inception of the Act.

Although the court granted the party payments of Sh4 billion, the government has so far not honoured the order, with the Treasury maintaining that it cannot afford to pay the awarded funds.

Sharing proposal

ODM in 2019 also petitioned the ORPP to change the law such that all political parties share 15 per cent equally while 85 per cent is shared proportionately based on party strength.

In 2020, the government submitted in Parliament a Bill to cause allocation of PPF only after deduction of expenditure (including loans) and cash for counties.

“The introduction of public funding of political parties was not only intended to address challenges of elite capture and control of political parties, but also was aimed at promoting fair completion between ruling and opposition political groups, and to nurture emerging parties,” the report reads.