EC must update common roll, say Jiwakans

MANY people in the new Jiwaka province claim their names are not on the common roll to vote in next year’s elections.
Jeffery Kuri, a community leader from the Komun area in the Anglimp-South Waghi electorate, said plantation workers and block holders who would miss out on voting.
Those people were from the Southern Highlands, Hela, Enga, Chimbu, Western Highlands and coastal provinces who had been living in blocks and working on coffee plantations for many years.
With the recent formation of the new province, a new common roll update had to be carried out to enable every eligible voter to elect their leaders.
He said there were many coffee plantations in Jiwaka and many would be left out if the Electoral Commission (EC) did not send the claims for the enrolment roll or update the common roll used in 2007.
Kuri said time was running out and he wanted
to know when the common roll would be updated.
If the EC did not provide any claim for the enrolment roll then it must provide transport for those people so they could return to their provinces to vote.
Kuri said 20% of the 300,000-plus people in Jiwaka were likely to miss out.
Landowners would not have any problem but settlers working on the tea and coffee plantations would.
He said the EC must do something immediately so those people could be registered.