Govt spent K8mil on by-election, official says

THE Government spent K8 million on the Bougainville seat by-election, a senior official says.
Acting PNG Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said this in response to questions about the cost of the by-election in Bougainville.
He said the budget had been K15 million but PNGEC had only received K8 million.
Sinai said they worked within that budget to ensure the by-election was conducted on schedule and within budget.
He said staging a regional election in Bougainville was easy.
“South Bougainville was difficult and in the Northern area which is made up of islands and reached only by boats, we hired a boat out of Lae to assist,” he said.
Sinai said PNGEC worked with the Office of Bougainville Electoral Commission (Obec) who were under the joint supervisory body arrangement of the national government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government to run the elections.
“We gave them the opportunity to supervise and run the election,” he said.
“As part of the supervisory arrangements, we got our election managers to oversee the operations of the election on Bougainville.”
Sinai acknowledge the Obec team, electoral commissioner George Manu and his staff who accepted the appointment of a returning officer and the assistant returning officers for the 33 constituencies who managed the election and delivered the results.
He said the by-election was another good experience for Obec which had previously been involved with the referendum vote.
Sinai also acknowledged the Government for its funding of the by-elections and said the PNGEC was looking forward to the 2022 National Elections.
The writ for the Bougainville regional seat was returned to Governor-General Grand Chief Sir Bob Dadae at Government House in Port Moresby yesterday.
The Bougainville by-election started last Dec 3, and Peter Tsiamalili Jr declared the winner on Feb 7, after passing the absolute majority with 37,534 votes.