L
LequteMan
Guest
Nigeria - Acting INEC chairperson Amina Zakari has said the commission is getting in gear for the Kogi and Bayelsa elections which'll take place in the near future.
"The processes have started. We are comfortable. The RECs are already doing what they need to do at the lower level. I always told the staff there are soft issues you can do without money. You can begin preparations without money. While you are waiting for the core issues, you can begin with soft preparations and this is the example of what we are doing. In fact, our timelines have not been derailed for any reason." she said in an interview published by The Nation.
"Normally, for governorship election, it costs us between N500 million and N600 million. This is all inclusive. It includes payment of ad hoc staff and the bulk of our cost is usually the payment of honorarium to ad hoc staff. But we have some savings. We still have leftovers, non-sensitive materials from the 2015 elections, and we are not going to procure a lot. We will just concentrate on procuring the sensitive materials.
"For Kogi, I'm still expecting the budget, but we have done the budget for CVR and PVC distribution. They were approved when there were enough members of the commission. For Kogi, we are coming up with the budget.
"For Bayelsa, we have to go back to government for the budget. Nonetheless, we have started preparation. We had preliminary meeting with the RECs last Wednesday to discuss modalities for the CVR. We have a work plan for the CVR, so we want to start early. Then we would have a work plan for the elections. We should soon get approval for Kogi.
"We would get a memo and budget for Kogi. But for Bayelsa, we have to go back to government because we had anticipated Bayelsa to be in next year’s budget, but due to the timelines approved in the constitution, it is better to prosecute the two elections this year. Next year, we take Ondo and Edo, so that we can have a paced process so we don’t get inundated with too many elections like we did between 2011 and 2015, so we can tidy up and ensure seamless delivery of credible elections to Nigerians.
The Nation
"The processes have started. We are comfortable. The RECs are already doing what they need to do at the lower level. I always told the staff there are soft issues you can do without money. You can begin preparations without money. While you are waiting for the core issues, you can begin with soft preparations and this is the example of what we are doing. In fact, our timelines have not been derailed for any reason." she said in an interview published by The Nation.
"Normally, for governorship election, it costs us between N500 million and N600 million. This is all inclusive. It includes payment of ad hoc staff and the bulk of our cost is usually the payment of honorarium to ad hoc staff. But we have some savings. We still have leftovers, non-sensitive materials from the 2015 elections, and we are not going to procure a lot. We will just concentrate on procuring the sensitive materials.
"For Kogi, I'm still expecting the budget, but we have done the budget for CVR and PVC distribution. They were approved when there were enough members of the commission. For Kogi, we are coming up with the budget.
"For Bayelsa, we have to go back to government for the budget. Nonetheless, we have started preparation. We had preliminary meeting with the RECs last Wednesday to discuss modalities for the CVR. We have a work plan for the CVR, so we want to start early. Then we would have a work plan for the elections. We should soon get approval for Kogi.
"We would get a memo and budget for Kogi. But for Bayelsa, we have to go back to government because we had anticipated Bayelsa to be in next year’s budget, but due to the timelines approved in the constitution, it is better to prosecute the two elections this year. Next year, we take Ondo and Edo, so that we can have a paced process so we don’t get inundated with too many elections like we did between 2011 and 2015, so we can tidy up and ensure seamless delivery of credible elections to Nigerians.
The Nation
