Development for Peace Education in collaboration with other civil society organisations, which have not received full amount of what they spent on electoral education, joined by the traders and political parties do not accept the intention of the Minister of Finance to cut the local Government Election budget proposed by the Independence Electoral Commission.
This was resolved at the meeting where the NGOs, Traders and Political parties were discussing the ways of communicating their discontent to the Minister of Finance that the IEC has not been given adequate funds to settle the bills accruing from the previous elections. The civil society provided electoral education and were expecting the final trench of their money aimed at covering the electoral education related activities. There is a consensus among traders who gave IEC services directly and through NGOs as well as political parties speaking on behalf their members who worked in the past elections as party agents that the Minister should transfer funds to the IEC forthwith to settle the outstanding payments.
At the meeting held at Lesotho Association of Non Formal Education (LANFE), on the 28 February 2023, the concerned groups want the government to give IEC money in this financial year. The reason for this is to leave what will be given in the next financial year for the local government. The group further noted that the Minister of Finance has proposed in her budget speech M214 Million for local government elections in September 2023. This is way below the M316 million that the IEC budgeted for the same national obligation. There is yet another consensus to object this proposal because it sets the IEC for a failure. The Group believes that if this goes as planned, the IEC will not be able to pay for all the necessary costs for smooth elections. The DPE Coordinator, Sofonea Shale insisted that the proposed budgetary allocation for the IEC should be changed by the Minister particularly because parliament does not have power to increase it.
