MONROVIA – As part of the exercise to create awareness around the various activities of the registration process for the pending voters registration, the National Elections Commission (NEC) yesterday, Tuesday, February 7, 2023 launched its biometric voter bi-monthly briefing in the presence of some stakeholders, including international development partners, political parties, civil society organizations, the media among others, with the assurance that the process is on course.
Speaking at the occasion, the Chairperson of NEC, Mrs. Davidetta Brown-Lassanah said the preferred vendor for the biometric voter registration contract, LAXTON Group is procuring the BVR equipment and software for NEC and will support the electoral umpire in implementation of its BVR process, working closely with NEC and the UNDP Technical Team to ensure that the Voter Registration Software is fully built to function for the exercise. She said the company has been in the country for months, and has conducted first and second level testing of the BVR software for use during the registration.
She further said that out-standing testing of BVR equipment and software was done on January 25, 2023, at the Firestone Liberia Rubber Plantation (Division 16), to ensure that capturing of fingerprints for manual laborers will not be difficult during full implementation. The NEC boss said the Technical team made a live presentation of the BVR system (Equipment and Software) to the leadership of the Liberia Marketing Association during a one-day information sharing session, organized by the commission.
Madam Brown-Lassanah further said NEC/UNDP Technical Team developed and launched the Temporary Staff Application platform (jobs.necliberia.org) to handle recruitment of all temporary workers during the 2023 voter registration process. NEC Headquarters and Magisterial staff have been trained to manage the recruitment process.
On funding to the exercise, she said NEC informed the public that the government USD18.37m of which USD14, 225,000.00 have been received by the commission. She further said that the balance of USD4,150,000.00 is due the commission as per the 2022 fiscal year approved budget and that the commission has been in discussion with the MFDP on the remaining portion of the money in order to support the contractual arrangements with the LAXTON Group.
The Chairperson used the occasion to address the audience on the campaign period which has raised a lot of issues in the polity recently when some concerns were raised about some politicians and political parties engaging in pre-election campaigns.
“The Commission takes this time to remind all political parties, coalitions, alliances and independent aspirants that the campaign period for the 2023 General Elections is 5 August 2023 to 8 October 2023, and that only after being qualified by the commission during the 2023 candidate nomination period can an aspirant become a candidate to contest in the pending election.
“The commission further reminds all political parties, coalitions, alliances and independent aspirants that Chapter 11 of the revised regulations and procedures relating to political parties, coalitions, alliances and independent candidates provide a fine of up to five thousand United States dollars or its Liberian dollar equivalent for acting outside of the campaign period announced by the commission.
“When there is a violation of the guidelines …whether through verbal expressions or symbolic speeches, the commission will apply the appropriate sanction”, the NEC boss stated.
The commission urged all political actors and stakeholders to continue to promote non-violent engagements during the electoral activities and called on the public to take advantage of existing legal channels in addressing grievances.
Key stakeholders also spoke at the occasion. Eddie Jarwolo, Executive Director of NAYMOTE Partners who spoke on behalf of the civil society organizations said that as huge as the task ahead of NEC, it is embarrassing that the entity is struggling to get funded by the government and urged the government to do everything possible to release more funds to enable her achieve the assignment of delivering a credible election.
For the political parties, the Secretary General of the People’s Unification Party(PUP) said why it was important to commend NEC and the development partners for the job done thus far, it will not augur well with the process if NEC does not address the issue of pre-election campaign being carried out by the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and that if nothing is done to correct what he called the “flagrant violation of the election laws”, others may also want to take advantage of the situation and it may cause some unforeseen problems.
Speaking on behalf of the Liberia Marketing Association, Mrs. Elizabeth Sambolah, said her association was excited to be part of the process and commended NEC and development partners for the BVR initiative, though highlighting some of the challenges. She said they have commenced a sensitization process to educate and mobilize the market women throughout the country to turnout for the registration to obtain their cards and vote the candidates of their choice on October 10, 2023.
Also speaking on behalf of the European Union (EU), Ambassador Laurent Delahouse, said the EU will continue to support the democratization process in Liberia and urged Liberians to take advantage of the registration exercise so as to discharge their civil responsibilities during the election.
He said the ensuing election is very important and critical to the country as the process will be done by Liberians without international security presence, urging the citizens to continue to be the beacon of hope for true democracy and good governance.
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