EC firm on LLG elections

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK and ANGELA PAUL
Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato says local-level government elections will go ahead despite boycott threats from LLG presidents and councillors.
He said yesterday that the elections next month in 6033 wards in the country would start as scheduled.
Presidents and councillors in Morobe, West Sepik, East New Britain, Chimbu and Central have threatened to boycott the elections over councillors’ outstanding allowances.
Gamato said the Department of Provincial Affairs and LLG was handling their issues on outstanding salaries and allowances.
“We run the elections and that issue cannot stop me from running elections,” he said.
“We must provide this service for other Papua New Guineans to run for public office.
“Elections are in the Constitution and any PNG citizen who is eligible to run for public office has the right to stand for elections. We will still provide the service.”
Gamato said that after West Sepik deputy governor John Noss said they would boycott the LLG elections if they did not get their outstanding allowances by the end of this month.
Noss, who is the Walsa LLG president in Vanimo-Green, said they were joining their colleagues around the country.
Treasury Secretary Dairi Vele said that they had already released K5 million in February to pay each of the councillors.
A senior provincial affairs and LLG officer assured councillors throughout the country that the government was committed to paying them before the elections.
Wutung councillor Raphael Tungla, from West Sepik, has confirmed that he had received a total of K7200 of his outstanding allowances since the government made the decision in December 2014, to pay out all outstanding allowances.
Meanwhile, councillors of four wards in Rigo Inland LLG in Central supported the decision by their colleagues to boycott the election.