Monrovia – Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah, has threatened to find another commission to conduct the pending senatorial by-elections if the National Elections Commission (NEC) is incapable of conducting the by-elections with US$1.5 million.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
FrontPageAfrica has gathered that the Finance Minister in a budget meeting with officials of the NEC held on Tuesday, March 20 insisted that the government can not provide any more than US$1.5 million as opposed to the US$3.9 million budget proffered by the Elections Commission.
Minister Tweah remains resolute that the Commission can cut down the cost of the Montserrado and Bong Counties by-elections significantly, if government employees are used as poll workers.
According to Tweah, the Commission does not need to recruit and train workers.
NEC Chairman, Cllr. Jerome George Korkoya, Commissioner Jonathan K. Weedor, the Executive Director Larmine Leigh were all present in the meeting.
Minister Tweah informed the NEC officials that the President, Speaker of the House and President Pro-Tempore of the Senate have all allegedly concurred with the decision to slice the budget by more than half.
FrontPageAfrica has, however, not independently verified this information.
But NEC Chairman, Cllr. Korkoya, vehemently opposed the usage of government employees to serve as poll workers, noting that such move would kill the integrity of the by-elections.
He also slammed the US$1.5 million being imposed by the Finance Minister, noting that it would only be possible if government partners help meaningfully.
Cllr. Korkoya reminded Minister Tweah that there are 20 political parties with vested interests in the Commission; therefore, the Commission would not entertain any interference from the government by sending in workers, especially when the government is an offspring of a party that won the 2017 elections.
The two seats were made vacant by the election of President George Weah and Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor of Montserrado and Bong Counties, respectively.
The Finance Minister is on record for describing the by-elections as “insignificant”, noting that putting US$3.9 million into it would be like depriving John F. Kennedy Medical Center, the country’s biggest referral hospital, funds for operations.
He said the NEC budget is unrealistic.
In response to Tweah’s remarks, Cllr. Korkoya early this week described the remarks as laughable.
“The best thing you can do is call the experts in and talk with them; that is what we have done in the past. Where the Commission submitted a budget, previous Ministers of Finance will call the Commission, we sit and justify. We realize that this is public funding and we have to account for it.”
“This is election. We have stakeholders and all these people have roles to play and not for one person to sit and decide.”
He made the statement on ELBC on Monday this week.
“This is strange that we have written the Finance Minister and he hasn’t even given us the courtesy of acknowledgement,” the Elections Commission Chairman said.
Cllr. Korkoya further disclosed in that interview that the pending by-elections stand a risk of constitutional crisis as the Commission has already begun postponing important deadline dates.
“This is constitutional and not discretional; we cannot postpone election dates.”
“We are waiting for the government and if the government wants to make funding available fine.”
“If they want to hold election, it is also fine. If they don’t want to, it’s still fine, but we cannot be postponing elections date.”
“We shouldn’t even have these discussions. I think we should do the responsible thing by sitting quietly and see whether we can invite donors and discuss budget items and see if they can help rather than going around and barking all over the place like a German Shepherd.”
The NEC Chairman expressed concern that the Ministry of Finance was not responding to the budget intended to run the two by-elections simultaneously.
He further stated that because of the delay from the Ministry, the Commission is in a position of uncertainty.
According to the National Elections Commission, Bong and Montserrado Counties constitute about 45 percent of the country’s voting population.
Montserrado County is the most populated county in Liberia and has a voting population of 778,291. This county hosts the seat of the government.
This county is stronghold of President George Weah.
In the 2017 presidential elections, President Weah attained 314,594 votes representing 62.9 percent of the valid votes in the elections.
In 2014, President Weah got a landslide victory in the midterm senatorial election with 78.0% of the valid votes in that election.
Bong County has 208,123 registered voters per the 2017 registered voters’ statistics. The central Liberian county has the third highest number of registered voters in the country.
The county is the stronghold of Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, who served as senator for the county from 2006 to 2017.
The CDC-led government attained 61,520 of the votes cast in the county which represents 40.6 percent of the overall votes in the county.