Trawen: Project will suffer

 By LAZARUS BIRA

ELECTORAL Commissioner Andrew Trawen says inadequate Government funding will affect the improvement of the electoral rolls for the 2017 general election.

Trawen raised the concern in Port Moresby yesterday during an election managers workshop where they were to provide their plans on updating and improving the rolls in their provinces from next year.

He said the 2014 supplementary budget and 2015 national budget failed to include the commission’s funding request for the electoral roll improvement programme.

“The commission had made a detailed project submission for K30.9 million to roll out its photo electoral roll programme using the voter identification technology and K18 million for the normal roll update programme,” Trawen said.

“But this will now be foregone because funding has not been appropriated. This means the enrolment updates rollout nationwide in 2015 will be in limbo.

“I am very disappointed that the commission was not given separate funding it had requested for these programmes.

“To go nationwide in 2015 to 2017, the Electoral Commission will need a lot of funding from the State and provincial administrations. It’s a huge challenge for us to update and improve the electoral rolls before the 2017 general election.”

He said improving the electoral process was a long term and continuous cycle and improvement initiatives were planned over five years.

Trawen said they had no choice but to work alongside the national identity project to improve the electoral roll.