K4MIL PAYMENT FOR CCTV DURING 2022 NATIONAL GENERAL ELECTION QUERIED

K4MIL PAYMENT FOR CCTV DURING 2022 ELECTION QUERIED

The National - June 20, 2023

By Majeleen Yanei

EAST Sepik Governor Allan Bird has asked the Electoral Commission to explain a K4 million transaction for the supply of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras during General Election 2022.

Chairman Bird, during the fifth public hearing for the Special Parliamentary Committee on General Election yesterday, asked commissioner Simon Sinai about the payment to a company for the supply of CCTV and its purpose.

“Could you tell us what you did with the CCTV footage and is the footage available for public access?

“We have asked all the provinces and they had no idea, what was the purpose of the CCTVs and what is the process to access it?” he asked.

According to the election report presented by electoral commissioner Simon Sinai, they provided CCTVs for 14 counting centres without covering all the 118 centres.

Sinai, last year, said CCTV will be used to monitor counting at the allocated centres.

Sinai was not able to explain, however, Electoral Commission deputy commissioner (corporate services) John Kalamoro said they had a difficult job working out what security company they could engage to guarantee the safety of the election.

“Most of our experiences so far suggested that a lot of cheating happened during the counting so we decided to use the cameras,” he said.

“Footage are available on cloud saver which would require a court direction to access it before the commissioner provides the link.”

Kalaromo said the information technology (IT) works on a contract basis only when there is need.

He said their financial team were not there to clarify on the other misleading reports.

The committee also questioned Electoral Commission’s information technology company (Mindsoft IT) as the financial report presented was misleading and why they have not tendered the company.

Bird then told them: “The report presented by the Electoral Commission before the committee has inaccurate information that needs to be verified be presented in the next parliament sitting.”

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