The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is crying foul over 16 political parties which contested the National Assembly elections and were allocated funds to pay party agents but are yet to account.

IEC Deputy Public Relations Officer Ms. Reitumetse Makoetje released a list of the 47 political parties which contested National Assembly elections on October 07, 2022, however, the list shows that only 31 out of the 47 political parties have accounted for the funds allocated to them by the Commission while the rest have not complied.

Moreover, in its statement, IEC says it would like to inform the public as well as the party agents that to date, out of the 47 Political Parties that received funds in the 2022 National Assembly Elections, only 31 Political Parties reported and were provided with the funds for the payments of the Political Party agents for the Local Government elections.

The remaining parties who are yet to submit their reports are 16 and therefore have not received funds whilst waiting for the remaining Political Parties to finalise their reports’ it highlighted. The release says the payments for the Independent Candidates’ Party Agents are processed via Unayo and C-Pay. However, IEC says it came to its realisation that some Independent Candidate Party Agents did not submit their contacts for Unayo and C-Pay.

It therefore says Independent Party Agents are requested to submit their contact details as soon as possible to facilitate payment and indicated that for those who do not have contacts, IEC has made an arrangement that Independent Candidate Party Agents will receive their payments from the district offices from next week on the day that will be announced by the Commission.

Out of the 47 political parties which contested the 2022 National Assembly elections, 31 of them have fully accounted for every cent they spent, six of them have only accounted between 75 to 94 percent, three of them reported only between 68 to 72 percent while five reported below the 50 percent mark and two of them have not even accounted for a cent received.