West Sepik officials question reduced pay

COUNTING officials for the West Sepik provincial are up in arms over a perceived reduction in their approved allowances for meals.
They have sent a petition to provincial election steering committee chairman querying their situation.
Their spokesmen, Brian Kani and Jerry Kina, said yesterday counting officials were entitled to a daily meal allowance of K70 each but had been paid only K30.
“It is already 10 days since contracts between the Electoral Commission and the individual counting officials for the West Sepik regional and the Vanimo-Green River electorates were signed,” Kani said.
“Under the contract we are entitled to a meal allowance of K70 each per day and a counting allowance of K12 each per day for each eight-hour shift.”
The quality of food so far served to them was “very poor” and there were no refreshments during breaks, Kani said.
Counting officials are prepared to boycott counting after primary counts are completed unless their demands were met.
The officials each want the balance of K40 per day for their meal allowances for the past 10 days to be paid.
They also want their contracts reviewed to include overtime.
Provincial election steering committee chairman Henry Norma said that counting officials were entitled to K70 per day meal allowance.
He said he had advised election manager Martin Anskar to sort out the issues.