By Carol Paton.
The National Treasury says that the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) was adequately funded to run the 2024 elections.
An earlier budget cut was reversed in the February 2024/25 budget, and the IEC was permitted to retain a large surplus accumulated from the previous years.
News24 reported on Thursday that among the problems faced by the IEC in running Wednesday’s election was constrained funding after successive funding cuts over the past three years. In 2020/21 to 2023/24, the IEC’s budget was cut by R250 million. For the 2024/25 budget year, the IEC’s budget was cut by R31 million.
However, the Treasury said this information provided “an incomplete reading of the budget documentation and a misunderstanding of both the budget process and the nature of the challenges faced by the IEC and experienced by voters during election day”.
In addition to reversing most of the planned budget cut for 2024/25, the IEC was permitted to retain its accumulated surplus of R1.5 billion and benefitted further from an additional allocation of R350 million for the security of the election process.
The Treasury statement reads:
“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 will 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.”
The IEC has been criticised for numerous problems that emerged on election day. Among them were people not finding themselves on the voters’ roll, voter management devices malfunctioning, and voter confusion over the new complicated voting procedure and requirements.