Change laws to cater for country’s data

THERE is too much confusion over the electoral roll managed by the PNG Electoral Commission, national census data managed by the National Statistics Office (NSO), ward record book by Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs and the national identification (NID) project the by Civil Registry Office for demographic purposes.
Electoral roll, national census, ward record book and NID are established by different set of laws.
If the Government or whoever wants to merge these data and share these national data, they should first amend the relevant laws.
From the outset, one cannot use NID to vote during elections.
You should enrol and have your name in the electoral roll in order to vote.
NID cards can only be used to identify people; if required by the polling clerk to confirm your name and identity.
The recent claim by Prime Minister James Marape in saying; “It is time for the NSO, Electoral Commission and the national edentity registration to work together to save cost in delivering the census, electoral roll, and NID card” is questionable.
It may be true that running separate databases are quite expensive, but the laws governing the processes of data collection, management and use of these databases are separate.
Marape further said: “We will do our own head count, our own version of the census coinciding with the common roll up-date back to back in July, August and September. Our ward members will be submitting names of every people in their wards.”
However, it is common sense that the establishment of these databases and the processes are legally under different laws.
This is not to say that laws governing electoral roll, national census, ward record book and NID cannot be changed. They can be changed but any amendment to databases should be legally sanctioned and tested to be prudent.
It raises issues such as the prudence of the ward record books handled by ward recorders or councillors are entrusted to collect data for election, census and NID.
Another example is the electoral roll. Although it may require about seven fields such as name, address, sex, age, electorate, ward, photograph, figure print and others, the process will require completing the claim for enrolment form for those who are eligible to vote and the process of public display of preliminary roll and objections of names if an elector is not qualified in a ward or electorate.
After this election, if the electoral commissioner wishes, he can order a new roll for the next election.
The Organic Law on National Elections is the legal authority of the electoral roll, which is a constitutional law while the ordinary law established national census and NID under the Civil Registry Act.
These should be considered in order to come up with a prudent and workable electoral roll.
If the Government wants to address challenges with data collection, it should first change the laws.
The best option is to order the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission to look into these challenges and make appropriate recommendations to the Government.
PNG is a member of the international community and is obligated by many international conventions and declarations to uphold the principles of natural justice, rights and democracy.
These international conventions and declarations hold PNG accountable to principles of human rights and best international practices.
Apart from the international conventions and declarations, there are laws governing the management and operations of electoral roll, national census and NID.
The problem with election, national census, ward record book and NID are that databases that requires continuous updating and maintenance.
After the 2017 national general elections, the Government forgot to assist the Electoral Commission to improve voter registration, polling and counting processes, even though certain leaders personally promised to look into these problems.
They waited until the eve of the next election and are now jumping up and down and making outrageous commitments to fix the problems, but they are constrained by time and financial resources.
There is no forward planning to change the laws and allocate financial resources to address the problems of electoral roll, national census, ward record book and national identification for PNG.

Pisai Gumar,
Mongkeng-Morobe