Tracking ads expenditures on print media advertisements, electronic media advertisements and coverage/programmes in the 2019 general elections, INEC said major political parties breached the spending limit.
According to the election management body, 91 political parties participated and about 34 submitted reports of expenditure.
“Out of the 34, only nine fully complied with submitting a report with an affidavit. The commission is already auditing the accounts of political parties over the last five years; 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021,” said the commission’s Director, Elections and Party Monitoring, Aminu Idris.
He disclosed this on Tuesday in Lagos at the two-day capacity-building workshop for journalists on critical issues in the Electoral Act, 2022 and the Commission’s Processes, Innovations, Preparations for the 2023 General Election.
He said the commission last report had some figures from the presidential election of the two major parties.
“We remember that then, the maximum limit was N1bn and what we had based on our tracking across the country was N4.6bn and N3.3bn. What we tracked were about four items namely billboards, print media advertisements, electronic media advertisements and coverage/programmes.”
While he was careful not to mention parties, Idris said the major parties were among those who broke the spending limits.
But INEC said it has prepared forms that would make the process easier to track expenditures and had also trained auditors from the registered political parties.