By Delly Waigeno – EM TV News, Port Moresby
Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, has cleared the air on certain matters relating to the upcoming national election in 2017.
The Prime Minister addressed the questions at a media conference held yesterday.
He was asked about the K182 million budget proposed by the Electoral Commission to assist with preparations for the 2017 general election.
Reports said the Electoral Commission asked the government for K192 million in the 2016 National Budget, but was assigned only K10 million.
O’Neill said the Election Steering Committee headed by the Chief Secretary needed to sit down with the Electoral Commission to come up with a “realistic” figure.
“I urge our team to sit down with the Electoral Commission to come down to realistic figures. A country of 8 million people cannot afford to spend over half a billion Kina on elections and every election. That is unheard of in the democratic world like ours. So we need to think of a smarter way to deliver a fair and free election on time and all these cost overrun need to stop.
“Whatever amount that they come up with, it is the responsibility of government to find that money. We will resume parliament on the 22 March and we will accommodate whatever changes we need to do on that occasion,” O’Neill said.
The Prime Minister was also asked about talks that the 2017 general election would see the country revert back to the former first past the post voting system.
O’Neill dispelled these claims, saying cabinet never deliberated on this matter and that there would be no change to the use of the Limited Preferential Voting system in the 2017 general election.
“Cabinet has never deliberated on this matter. There was no discussion about whether we change the system of voting in the country, so where this is coming from, I don’t know,” O’Neill explained.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBKghEDKnI
