{"id":17558,"date":"2019-12-21T07:28:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T07:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=17558"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:53:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:53:04","slug":"minority-blocks-approval-of-ecs-%c2%a21-8b-request-for-election-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/12\/21\/minority-blocks-approval-of-ecs-%c2%a21-8b-request-for-election-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Minority blocks approval of EC&#8217;s \u00a21.8b request for election 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Minority in Parliament has blocked the approval of a \u00a21,890,000,000 billion\u00a0budgetary allocation to\u00a0the Electoral Commission (EC) for election 2020 on grounds that it failed to furnish the House with a detailed breakdown of what the funds will be used for.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Minority Whip,\u00a0Ahmed Ibrahim said the Minority will not support the release of the funds until they are fully aware of how it will be used.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Joy News\u2019s Kwesi Wilson-Parker, he said the Finance Minister has already released \u00a21 billion, which they believe\u00a0should be enough for the elections, and does not understand why the EC wants more and has asked Parliament to push for the remaining \u00a2890,000,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy is \u00a21 billion not enough,\u201d he quizzed, adding that if the EC wants the Minority\u2019s support in pushing for the release of the funds, it must provide justification for it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/C9KPOspYQxM\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cConvince us. If we are going to appeal to the Finance Minister to add the reaming amount what is going to be our negotiating card.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet us know the detailed cost of the items you expect to spend the money, then when the Finance Minister comes, [we will make a case for you],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ibrahim who is also MP for Banda said the EC has been asked to submit to Parliament detailed estimates and expenditure for 2019 and the same for 2020 but has yet to make that available.<\/p>\n<p>He said until that is done, they [Minority] will not support the release of that much money for election 2020 when there are other very important issues such funds can be used to address.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou cannot write global figures. You don\u2019t need \u00a22 billion for election 2020. The \u00a21 billion you have is enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Deputy Minority whip further accused the Majority of \u2018shielding\u2019 the Commission anytime it is laid before the House adding that \u201cRight from March, this House has been struggling to have a committee of a whole meeting with the EC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He believed that as a country, money must be disbursed and utilised judiciously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you cannot account for how you spend \u00a2345 million \u2013\u00a0last year\u2019s budget \u2013 how can you say that we should give you \u00a22 billion. Give us details of the expenditure,\u201d he challenged.<\/p>\n<p>source:myjoyonline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minority in Parliament has blocked the approval of a \u00a21,890,000,000 billion\u00a0budgetary allocation to\u00a0the Electoral Commission (EC) for election 2020 on grounds that it failed to furnish the House with a detailed breakdown of what the funds will be used for. Deputy Minority Whip,\u00a0Ahmed Ibrahim said the Minority will not support the release of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[11261,4476,9306,5249,7960,1465,911,374,5079,1496,12354,11493,11743,9833,1961,5612,278,1198,6431,6348,3954,594],"class_list":["post-17558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-accused","tag-ahmed-ibrahim","tag-appeal","tag-budget","tag-case","tag-ec","tag-election","tag-electoral-commission","tag-electoral-commission-ec","tag-ex-deputy-minority-chief-whip-ahmed-ibrahim","tag-finance","tag-interview","tag-majority","tag-meeting","tag-ministry-of-finance","tag-money","tag-mp","tag-parliament","tag-release","tag-us","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51177,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17558\/revisions\/51177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}