MP queries Government’s preparedness for election

RABAUL MP Dr Allan Marat is querying the Government’s preparedness for next year’s general election.
“Frequent, free, fair, legitimate and transparent election is the cornerstone of our Constitutional democracy,” he said.
“The operative words are that elections are free, that they are fair, that they are legitimate and they are transparent.
“PNG has witnessed 12 national elections since the first House of Assembly in 1964, three using limited preferential voting system in 1964 to 1972, six from 1977 to 2002 were under the first-past-the-post system, and in the next three from 2007 to 2017, it was back to optional preferential limited to three choices again.”
“Is it true that the PNG Electoral Commission has exhausted its 2021 budget allocations and is sustained now by the technical support of the government of Australia and other development partners like New Zealand and the United States of America?
“Is it true that the 2021 budget allocation of K12 million to undertake a nationwide revision of electoral roll data used in the 2017 parliament and 2019 nationwide local level government elections has been used up in the last year’s Bougainville provincial elections, the 2021 Moresby North West by-election and the current inquiry into the number and sizes of open seats in Parliament undertaken by the Electoral Boundaries Commission?
Prime Minister James Marape, in response, said that he would respond to Dr Marat’s questions in writing.