Monrovia – Cllr. Jerome George Korkoya, Chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC), has expressed doubts over the possibility of conducting a “credible election” in 2020, due to the Commission being beyond schedule to implement some pre-election activities.
Cllr. Korkoya, appearing before the Senate Tuesday, February 25, he told senators that up to present NEC is yet to receive a dime from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning of the US$17 million budget needed for the conduct of the election.
Further, the NEC boss told the lawmakers that, since December 2019 where a commitment of US$7 million was made to get started, the Finance Minister is yet to make good on the commitment. He further stated that he has been informed by Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah that there is no allotment in the budget for the election and that he (Tweah) needs to seek approval from the legislature to source funding for the election.
“In my little experience, I do not believe we can achieve all that we should be doing by now effectively in keeping with transparency that should characterize the Special Senatorial Election in October of this year. And in term of how late we are, I think we are very late.”
Interference from Others
Cllr. Korkoya complained of interference from other government officials, whom he said are not election experts. According to him, these officials, whose names he didn’t call, make suggestions and interferences.
“That’s one of the problems we have. If people will leave the National Elections Commission to determine and make the technical decisions and people respect that, it is fine. But everybody is an election expert in Liberia. That is a problem; at the end of the day, they want credible results. We submitted the budget months back, and we did follow up,” Cllr. Korkoya lamented.
The NEC Chairman also expressed fear that the government could run into paralysis with one of the wings of the bicameral Legislature becoming non-functional because of the lack of quorum due to the absence of 15 senators, who are set to go for election but might not due to the delay or lack of funding for the Mid-term Senatorial Election.
He bluntly stated that the October election’s pre-activities are far behind schedule and that could affect its transparency.
“So we have a period of exhibition where people will challenge names and Nationality of people names posted.
“Under our constitutional arrangement the only way one can be a senator, he or she has to be elected by the people and commissioned by the NEC. As a Senate, if we don’t hold election in October, we will have a Senate short of 15 senators which doesn’t constitute two thirds. Without two thirds, we cannot have a Senate to concur with the House of Representatives, we cannot have a Senate to pass law,” he emphasized.
Like Cllr. Korkoya, Commissioner Jonathan K. Weedor, warned that if pre-election activities are not concluded by May 30, the possibility of conducting the October Special Senatorial Election could be seriously handicapped.
Commissioner Weeder emphasized that, according to international best practice, 70% of a credible electoral process is complete when registration and voters roll update are done properly.
“We are in discussion with the operations people and they have told us that if, by the 30th of May if the registration is not completed and a credible voters roll is established, the possibility of the conduct the election by October will be seriously handicapped.”
“In my little experience, I do not believe we can achieve all that we should be doing by now effectively in keeping with transparency that should characterize the Special Senatorial Election in October of this year. And in term of how late we are, I think we are very late.”
– Cllr. Jerome Korkoya, Chairman, National Elections Commission
Civil Servants’ Salary Won’t Be Used for Election
In October of 2019, Finance Minister Tweah expressed doubt about sourcing money to fund the 2020 Special Senatorial Election. He had vowed then that money generated as civil servants’ salary will not be used to fund the electoral process.
Appearing on the state broadcaster on Monday, November 4, Minister Tweah had said the Government will not affect its already struggling payroll to fund elections as much as the election is important.
“We need to find resources; we have balanced the payroll and want to pay regularly. We are not going to affect the payroll because of elections. We will not take civil servants pay to fund elections if that will mean I am no more Minister of Finance, so be it,” he said.
“We will have elections but that means we will have to find the money to do that. We are working on a lot of ways for money to come in. If some of those monies come in, it will be used to fund elections. Elections funding is a major process. We could rephrase some of the budget line items so the money that should be going to agriculture in the budget will be affected.”
NEC Complains Early of ‘No Money’ in January
The National Elections Commission (NEC) began to complain in early 2020 of not being funded to conduct the election. The NEC Chairman had alarmed that the Commission is running out of time for the preparations of the election and the referendum.
Chairman Korkoya said Finance Minister Tweah had allegedly proposed that the process be funded in phases, which he said he had accepted, but the Commission is yet to receive the first US$7 million to fund pre-electoral activities, including voters roll update, retrieving of lost cards, voters registration, among others.
“To be frank with you, election is expensive and we don’t have money yet. This may hamper the process if there is no money to meet the timeline. I don’t want us to ignore that, we have been working with Minister Tweah and his team at the Ministry of Finance and the Minister has proposed that we cut down the budget from US$27 million to US$15 million but we have not gotten any amount yet to start the process. I am confident that the government will do something because this is the first major election under this administration and I think they will want to work harder that the funding is available,” Cllr. Korkoyah said.
Cllr. Korkoyah clarified that the cutting down of the activities by the NEC will in no way affect the process. In 2018, by-elections to replace President George Weah and Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor were delayed because of the lack of funding.
When the government decided to hold election to fill in the vacancy, funding availability became a major issue.