Former chairman of Nigeria’s electoral commission, Professor Attahiru Jega has warned the federal government against including INEC in the Treasury Single Account (TSA) calling such a move a “recipe for disaster”.
Jega who spoke at the 2015 e-Nigeria Governance Forum in Abuja, said the effectiveness of electoral processes is conditional on availability of financial resources to deliver efficient services consistent with international minimum benchmarks and global best practices.
“Electoral processes cannot be effective if an EMB is starved of funds and/or has to go cap in hand to an incumbent executive begging for funds before it can conduct an election,” the immediate past chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) remarked. “The financial autonomy of INEC needs to be strengthened.”
“It should continue to be on first line charge and have all its funds released through the statutory transfer fund as appropriated by the National Assembly. Subjecting an electoral Commission to the so-called single treasury account, I believe, is a recipe for disaster,” he warned.
