Jubilee, ODM had over Sh1bn each ahead of 2017 polls

Jubilee and ODM had slightly more than Sh1 billion each in their bank accounts two months to the August 2017 polls, the latest report by Auditor General Edward Ouko shows.

This was part of the war chest accumulated in the run-up to the watershed elections that would later see the Supreme Court, for the first time in Kenya’s history, void presidential results on grounds that the electoral commission disobeyed the law in overseeing the polls.

Jubilee had collected Sh97 million in membership fees, Sh622 million from nomination fees and about Sh400 million from donations and contributions from members.

SH146 MILLION

Another Sh146 million came from the Political Parties Fund bringing the total amount to about Sh1.25 billion.

ODM received Sh131 million from foreign donors loosely captured as ‘transfers from other governments, gifts and services in kind’. In the records, the party reports that some Sh1.1 billion was from ‘other payments’ without disclosing the source bringing the total amount to Sh1.3 billion by mid-2017.

The Orange party also received Sh195 million from nomination fees and Sh73 million from life membership fees. Jubilee, on the other hand, had also accumulated property worth about Sh29 million as of June 2017.

STATE MACHINERY

The audit does not, however, cover income and expenses the parties incurred during the hotly contested General Election in which parties splurged billions of shillings with independent estimates suggesting that President Uhuru Kenyatta and Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga may have spent more than Sh50 billion each on the campaign trail.

During the electioneering period, the Nasa coalition accused Jubilee party of deploying State machinery to campaign such as helicopters and the public servants, aspects that are hard to be quantified.

And since Ford Kenya and Wiper parties supported Mr Odinga’s candidature in the 2013 presidential election under the Cord coalition, the audit shows that it gave the Moses Wetang’ula-led party Sh6.8 million in 2017 and Sh16.6 million to Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper party the previous year.

DEFECTIONS

The wave of defections normally occasioned by party primaries where disgruntled members defect saw the Orange party lose Sh20 million in revenue.

Like most of the outfits, ODM nominations ended in a fiasco in most parts of the country, especially in its strongholds. So serious was the fallout that Mr Odinga formed a task force on primaries to look into how to improve nominations in future.

On Friday, the party’s National Executive Committee met in Nakuru to discuss the report of the task force.

At the height of the heated campaigns as the government sought to minimise ODM’s reach in the country, we reported that the Central Bank of Kenya had been instructed by operatives in the Office of the President not to allow any suspicious monies they felt would go into funding the Opposition.

It was during the same time a foundation associated with Mr Odinga’s daughter Rosemary was delisted and accounts of that of his running mate Mr Musyoka and Wiper party leader frozen.

POLITICAL VEHICLES

Jubilee and ODM are the only political vehicles that meet the threshold to get a share of the Political Parties Fund (PPF).

A party must have at least 20 elected MPs, three senators and three governors to qualify for the PPF.

Mr Ouko notes that all political parties have weak internal controls. For instance, all the parties audited such as Wiper did not have internal audit units. It did not have a qualified IT expert and the accounts department is manned by one employee, who was in charge of writing the cash book, making payments and also doing bank reconciliations, exposing it to higher fraud risks.

Still, in the case of Wiper, Mr Ouko finds that while the statement on financial position indicates cash and bank balance of Sh10 million, a statement on cash flows reflects a balance of Sh19 million resulting in an unexplained difference of Sh9 million.

Wiper had Sh130 million during the period in its accounts.

VERIFICATION

Mr Ouko also found that like the rest of the parties, Jubilee’s lease agreement for the building housing its headquarters had not been registered with the Ministry of Land as the law requires. The lease was also not made available for audit verification.

The book value of the vehicles, whose number is not indicated, stood at Sh4.5 million. Mr Ouko said the party did not provide logbooks, making it hard to ascertain the ownership of the motor vehicles.

“During the nine-month period under review, the following was noted: The party did not have IT continuity and disaster recovery plans.

“The backups were not kept off-site. There was no formal process to review user access rights,” the AG concluded on IT and systems governance.

Overall, Mr Ouko gives the ruling party a clean bill of health.

“The party’s financial statements are in agreement with the accounting records and returns.”

RESIGNED

Further, Jubilee Party records show that David Murathe remains the party vice chairman even after publicly declaring that he had resigned.

He announced he was quitting after he took on the deputy party leader William Ruto, also President Kenyatta’s principal assistant. He controversially claimed that having served with the President for a total of 10 years, the DP will not be eligible to run for the presidency in 2022 and that he would seek the courts’ interpretation on the same.

Ford Kenya, another significant party had Sh53 million out of which Sh42 was collected from nomination fees and the rest from members’ contributions while Amani National Congress led by Musalia Mudavadi declared a paltry Sh5 million.

Former Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto’s Chama cha Mashinani registered after he fell out with Jubilee Party and fearing he would be rigged out during nominations had Sh17 million around the same time.

FRINGE PARTIES

There are other tens of fringe parties with a presence in Parliament and county assemblies but which did not attract Mr Ouko’s attention.

Ahead of the August 8 polls, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission issued guidelines in an attempt to control campaign funding, capping what a party could spend at Sh15 billion and allowing presidential candidates to spend Sh5.2 billion.

Aspirants for governor, Senate and women representatives for the Nairobi were allowed to splurge more than 400 million. Those for similar seats in Lamu were to only spend over 13 million.

There was, however, no framework of enforcing the rules. But even before the rules could come it forces, political players roundly rejected it before the High Court set it aside.

The electoral commission wanted aspirants of national and county assembly seats allowed to spend not more than Sh33 million and Sh10 million on the higher side respectively and Sh2 million and Sh66,000 on the lower side respectively.

The National Treasury allocated Sh49.9 billion for the election, with Sh5.3 billion going to election-related security operations such as policing 23 counties that the intelligence service has identified as potential hotspots for election violence, making it one of the most expensive polls in Africa in recent times.