EBC gets a E272 million boost to cater for elections

By Phephile Motau

The budget of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) has increased by over E272 million, to cater for the upcoming national elections.

The commission’s budget for the financial year was E26 million and this year, it has increased to E298 million. From the allocation, about E110.8 million has been set aside for CTA vehicle charges and E141.87 million has been set aside for personnel costs.

The Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said through the adoption of a more expansionary fiscal policy, this budget seeks to make additional provisions to the most critical and mandatory line items and programmes to ensure that operations are not compromised whilst providing for new and non- discretionary items such as salary adjustments, elections and exit packages for politicians.

The Eswatini Financial Times has previously estimated the exit packages for politicians to be worth about E200 million.