Bad weather, transportation issues cause delays

By Rebecca Kuku
Bad weather is delaying polling in Hela.
Provincial police commander Michael Welly said helicopters contracted by the Electoral Commission to transport polling officers, materials and security operation officers were not doing their jobs.
“Yesterday the helicopters left the polling teams stranded at a central location, today they did the extraction (picking up polling officials) and brought them back to Tari instead of inserting (dropping) them into their respective polling stations,” Welly said.
Welly said polling places in remote areas were not accessible by road.
“Air insertions to six polling wards in Koroba and five wards in Kopiago LLGs have not been inserted, also due to bad weather,” he said.
Welly said polling was done and dusted in Margarima but contracted helicopters did not pick the team up, so the police chopper had to be called in to pick up the officials.
He said they had hoped to complete polling yesterday but will have to do that  today.