Political Party Finances in 2020

Last week, many of us have discovered that we have been apparently being registered as members of political parties without our knowledge. This comes courtesy of data uploaded to the national ecitizen registry by the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP)

I have apparently of the Jubilee Party since 2017, the Party that produced the President and Deputy President and has a dysfunctional majority in Parliament. It has roped in ODM, the party that should be the minority, into a handshake agreement and this means there is no opposition party in Parliament.

The ORPP also administers the Political Parties Fund that draws funds from taxpayers, and for 2019/2020, it disbursed Kshs 872 million, with 564 million going to the Jubilee Party and 263 million to the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

What is the state of the different party finances? What is the best party to take over?

https://twitter.com/gabrieloguda/status/1406146736377192448

Here’s a peek into their financing.

  • Jubilee Party. Income of KShs 862 million. Last year, the political parties registrar announced that Jubilee was eligible to receive Kshs 161 million from the political parties fund for the first quarter of2020/2021. The party has income of 103M from public contributions and staggering Kshs 758 million from other governments, gifts and in-kind services (up from 240M the year before). They spent a sizeable Kshs 87 million on rent, Kshs 166 million on staff and Kshs 271 million in general expenses – and now have an accumulated surplus of Kshs 257 million up from a deficit of Kshs 70 million the year before. (Read more)
  • Orange Democratic Movement (ODM): Income of Kshs 1.5 billion income* in 2020. The party claims they are owed Kshs 7.5 billion by the political parties fund and “booked Kshs 1.2 billion of transfer owed” as income from 2018. The registrar of parties says ODM is eligible to receive Kshs 75M from the Political Parties Fund for the first quarter of 2020/2021. ODM was seeking a presidential candidate earlier this year for 2022, who is a committed, passionate disciplined and dependable party member who can mount a successful campaign. The fee was Kshs 1 million and with a reduced amount of Shs 500,000 for women, youth or persons with disabilities.
  • FORD Kenya is Kshs income 9 million in 2020, with its MP’s contributing half of its income. It is a well-run party despite its leadership wrangles but has received no money from their parliamentary coalition partner (ODM), for three years now.
  • Kenya African National Union (KANU) income of Kshs 5 million in 2020. KANU which ruled Kenya from 1963 to 2002, owes Kshs 176 million to creditors and has an accumulated deficit of Kshs 173 million. No results since 2013, it used Co-op Bank of as do most parties since the bank, and Equity, have branches outside Parliament.
  • Wiper: Kshs 15M income in 2018 when it budgeted for, but did not get, 6 million from PPP funds. Edith Nyenze and Maluki Mwenda each paid 200,000 as nomination fees. Previously, Wiper got Kshs 130 million income in the 2017 election year with 46 million from members and 52 million from election fees.
  • Amani National Congress: Revenue of Kshs 12.5 million (2019) from members contributions and donations. Already seeking aspirants for MP, MCA, women representative, governor and senator seats for the next scheduled election of 2022.
  • Narc Kenya: Has income of Kshs 5M (2019) as both members and MP’s contribute to its activity and financing.
  • Maendeleo Chap Chap had Kshs 38 million income in 2017. Their founder gave Kshs 36M million, and they spent 15M on recruitment, 5M on member cards, 4M on rent for HQ, 2.7M on branding, and 3.2M on office operations & postage.

Other less active parties with financial numbers include:

  • Democratic Party: income of Kshs 3 million (2019)
  • Green Congress: income of Kshs 3M (2018)
  • PDP: Kshs 2M income (2018)
  • Safina: Kshs 1.6M income (2018)
  • PNU: Kshs 1M income (2018). The Party won the 2007 election for Mwai Kibaki and later earned Kshs 21 million in the 2017 election year.
  • The New Democrats: Kshs 1M (2018), the Mombasa party’s year of formation.
  • Social Democrats: Kshs 0.5M (2018)
  • KADU Asili: Kshs 6M income (2017).
  • Civic Renewal Party is a new party, has high rent (Kshs 4 million), but no officials.
  • National Vision Party: No income in 2018. Their office is at Vision Plaza, and they claim to have 479,000 members.
  • Other parties, with no numbers shared, are the Thirdway Alliance, Roots Party, Ukweli Party, New Democrats, Maziingira Party (previously the people patriotic party), Alliance Party of Kenya, Chama Mwangaza Daima, Independent Party (TIP – whose founder passed away a few weeks ago), Communist Party, Kenya Social Congress, Agano party, Conservative Party of Kenya, Grand National Union Party of Kenya, Muungano Party and Mwangaza Party.
  • Last year the ORPP registered 21 parties. also rejected 176 others, most of which were because their names “lacks outright meaning)”. ORPP also refused to register several party names that play around the names of “Hustler” and “Building Bridges”. The given reasons are that Hustler is founded on one social grouping while BBI is an ongoing public agenda matter.

EDIT: The Political Parties Fund has paid the Jubilee Party (JP) Kshs 353.8 million and the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) Kshs 165.2 million for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of the financial year 2020/2021.

EDIT Nov 2022: For 2022/23, the Political Parties Fund intends to Kshs 1.475 billion to 48 parties. The recipients are led by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) with Kshs 577 million and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) with 308.2 million. Others are Jubilee Party 135M, Wiper Democratic Movement Party 72M, Democratic Action Party Kenya 31.5M, United Democratic Movement 26.8M & Amani National Congress 26.6M, Ford-K 25.8M, Kenya African National Union (KANU) 23.9M, Maendelo Chap Chap 12.6M, Pamoja African Alliance (PAA) 11.5M, The Service Party (TSP) 10.5M, Movement for Growth & Democracy 9.8M, Chama Cha Mashinani 8.1M, National Rainbow Coalition – Kenya (NARC-Kenya) 7.5M, Democratic Party 5.4M, National Rainbow Coalition 5.1M, Safina 3.1M and Kshs 1.04 million to Communist Party of Kenya.