Monrovia – Last month, the National Elections Commission (NEC) announced that in consultation with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, it was reducing its budget for the December 8, 2020 Special senatorial elections from USD$ 17 to USD$ 13.5 million.
However, the US$ 13.5 million is likely to increase if the legislature decides to allow the NEC to conduct the two by-elections in Montserrado and Sinoe counties for vacancy created in the House of Representatives as a result of deaths of Representatives Munah Pelham-Youngblood and J. Nagbe Sloh.
It is not yet clear how much could be added but the two by-elections come with additional cost to the budget for December special Senatorial elections.
Madam Davidetta Brown-Lassanah, Chair of the NEC, said Tuesday. “Our plan is in you plan if your plan is to send us a notice, we are ready we have the capability to conduct the election. If we get the notice within 90 days, we are prepare to conduct the process and if it falls in the period of the December senatorial election there will be additional cost which is not part of the USD$ 13.5 million.”
As it is, the Legislature, is yet to inform the NEC about the vacancy but according the NEC Chair the commission is ready to conduct the two by elections if the go-ahead is given.
At a senate committee hearing Tuesday, the NEC chair informed Senators that the USD$ 17.6 Million budget was done on the basis that the Elections Commission was conducting a special Senatorial elections by opening all of the 2080 voting precincts which require staffs to station at various polling places and could demand a lot of temporary staff to mind the areas. “We feel comfortable that we will be able to use this US$ 13.5 million to do this election. The issue of the final registration rolls as contain in the resolution we have put that into effect. As it is, the NEC has made good on all international procurement with the USD$ 3 million received from the government of Liberia.
Kokoya’s budget
Before the end of his tenure, former NEC chairman, Cllr, Jerome Kokoyah, submitted a budget in the tone of US$23m to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. After rigorous reviews by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and development partners, the budget was reduced by US$ 5.2m or 23.%. Even after the reduction, the Government and development partners insisted that there was still a need for a further reduction, but Kokoya and other Commissioners insisted that any more cuts would compromise the integrity of the elections.
The continuation of the examination and reduction of the budget for the Midterm elections was now left to the new administration chaired by Commissioner Davidetta Brown-Lassanah. After taking over as Chair, she and her team immediately undertook a further review of the budget. After a laborious review lasting for nearly two months, the budget was further slashed by 27%, bringing the total budget down from US$17.8m to US$13.5m- a difference of US$4.3m.
In February, Cllr. Korkoya, appearing before the Senate, 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.
The former NEC chair told senators that up to time of his speaking, NEC was 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.”