Referendum countdown paused after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) says it won’t be able to continue with the verification exercise until it is funded.
The move comes as a shocker to the taskforce. The national treasury said they are incapacitated and the economy has hit hard.
However, IEBC maintained that Sh 14-20 Billion will be enough for the whole exercise and until it is fully funded that when the verification process will begin.
Speaking while receiving 4.4 million signatures from the BBI secretariat on Thursday, IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati said they will only begin on the exercise once they get money from the National Treasury.
“As a commission, our work starts here, after receiving the signatures. The soft copy will save us the trouble of typing out the hard copies. We shall now proceed and request for a budget from the National Treasury,” Chebukati said.
“As soon as we get the budget and exchequer then we shall now get a team…our team is already available…we have a referendum committee which will undertake the exercise of signature verification…but, of course, we shall not commence until we get a budget and exchequer from the National Treasury.”
Signatures for the BBI that were given to the electoral commission dropped to 4.4 million from 5.2 million earlier collected.
BBI Secretariat Co-Chairperson Dennis Waweru mentioned internal verification as the reason behind the 800,000 signatures drop.
“As you are aware, the minimum requirement is 1 million signatures and so we have decided to submit 4.4million signatures. Wale ambao wanafikiri wanaweza pinga hii process tunataka kuwaambia the bus has left. The only thing you can do…unaweza kimbia uchukue taxi ama nduthi ukimbie you catch up with us because we are not going to stop,” he said.
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