The National Treasury weighed in on claims that budget cuts were at the centre of the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) woes on voting day. Picture: Henk Kruger/Independent Newspapers
The National Treasury weighed in on claims that budget cuts were at the centre of the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) woes on voting day, saying “measures were taken to specifically ensure that requirements for the elections were adequately resourced”.
“The 2024 Budget review outlined these measures, including reversing spending reductions to the IEC, thus making an additional R250 million available compared to the 2023 MTBPS estimates, allowing the IEC to retain its accumulated surpluses of R1.5 billion; and new additional allocations of R350 million for the security of the election process.
“As part of the 2024 Budget process, the National Treasury continuously engaged with the IEC on its funding requirements for the 2024 national and provincial elections. The national Treasury’s engagements with the IEC confirmed that the costs related to elections can be accommodated within the entity’s baseline through surplus retention.
“During the 2024 MTEF budget process, the IEC indicated that they would not require any additional allocation for election-related activities provided that approval is granted for them to retain accumulated surpluses of R1.5 billion. This approval was granted by the National Treasury.
“In the 2023/24 financial year the Electoral Commission was allocated R2.232 billion. The Electoral Commission is allocated R2.302 billion for the 2024/25 financial year of which R322.2 million was transferred during April 2024. A further R1.040 billion is being transferred between May and June 2024 to the Electoral Commission,” Treasury said.
The remarks follow concerns by experts and observers after technical, administrative and logistical glitches were reported across voting stations, leading to some stations closing during the early hours on Thursday.
Earlier this year, while briefing the home affairs portfolio committee, IEC CFO Dawn Mbatha said the electoral body had received a R2.3bn allocation for 2024-25. She said R30m was cut from the Budget by the National Treasury.
The allocated amount, Mbatha said, was to be spent as follows: R911.6m on administration, R1.2bn on electoral operations, R236.9m on outreach and R25m on party funding.
She also said the electoral operations were not fully funded, but would be funded through the retention of surpluses.
Unisa political science professor Dirk Kotze said: “It was a massive task, they had over 200 000 people employed for (Wednesday). The problem is that all of them were not sufficiently trained. This is part of the reason why the management of queues was problematic.
Budget cuts would explain why they didn’t have enough time to prepare staff and train them”
The IEC did not respond to requests for comment on deadline on Thursday.
Cape Times
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