2027 election: INEC says it has already received over N500 billion in budget allocation

Mohammed Haruna, Commissioner for Information and Voter Education at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has declared that the commission has received more than N500 billion, or more than half of the funding allotted for the general elections in 2027.

Haruna stated that the distribution of these monies is a good thing in an interview with Arise News on Friday about election preparation and fundraising.

He did, however, also draw attention to INEC’s worries about unpaid debts from earlier elections and the prompt availability of the remaining funds required to carry out their plans in their entirety.

“As of right now, we have received more than half of the allocated funds, approximately N500 billion or slightly more,” he stated. This amounts to more than half of the total.

Of course, there are still certain problems to deal with. Due to inadequate finance at the time of the last general election, we have debts.

“We owe contractors almost six billion, and we still owe more than 20 billion out of the statutory budget of approximately 140 billion for that year. The first 500 billion was issued, I think, only this month, a week or two ago.

Haruna responded to worries about funding delays by saying that INEC has already started preparing for the 2027 elections, including plans to purchase more BVAS devices and other necessary election supplies.

“Yes, we are worried. This is a concern that everyone has. In the end, the money needs to be accessible.

Thus, the fact that more over half have been released is positive.

But even before this, we had been making a lot of preparations. For instance, in order to complete the importation of BVAS, which is essential to our current election process, the Director of ICT and another person travelled to China.

Haruna underlined, “As I mentioned, we have been undertaking significant preparatory work in anticipation of this.”