IPNEWS: The National Election Commission says it has received from the government of Liberia the amount of 20 million United States dollars for the holding of the presidential and general Legislative elections.
According to the NEC Boss, Cllr. Davidetta Browne Lansanah, several steps are now taken leading to a successful 2023 Election Financing with the government to adjust the submitted 2023 comprehensive Election Budget to the US $ 61Million Dollars.
Cllr. Lansanah, stated that the Government of Liberia has appropriated and approved in the National Budget for the fiscal year 2022 the amount of US$20,000,000.00 for the National Election Commission.
This amount represents partial funding to enable the NEC to conduct voter Registration and other preliminary Electoral activities to date, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) has disbursed to the NEC the amount of US$ 6,000.000.00 for Election Registration.
Meanwhile, the National Elections Commission says it will begin the process of Voters Registration in Early December 2022 throughout the Country.
Speaking at a news Conference at the NEC headquarters in Monrovia the Chairperson of the National Election Commission said from Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) to Biometric Voter
Registration (BVR) System plans for the 2023 General Elections, will begin transitioning from the manual Optical mark Recognition Technology for the registration of voters to the biometric voter system.
Cllr. Davidetta Browne Lansanah said Some of the advantages of Biometric Voter Registration include the prevention of multiple registrations, accuracy of the information collected for each registered voter, the creation of unique lifetime voter identification for each registered voter, and the eradication of voter impersonation.
She added that the Removal of duplicated records from the Voter Registration System, Eradication of issues related to unintentional errors during the data entry, and methodology for planned BVR and the Registration exercise will begin on December 15, 2022, and ends on March 17, 2023.
NEC Boss mention that centers in that region will be opened for registration for a period of these thereafter the teams will move to the next region, the three regions are Region 1 Montserrado, Bomi, Gbarpolu and Cape Mount County December 15,2022 to January 6,2023
While Region II (Phase two) will cover Bong, Grand Bassa, Lota, and Margibi Counties, will start on January 21, 2023 and end on February 10, 2023, and Region III will cover Grand Gedeh, Grand Kru, Maryland, Nimba,River Gee, River Cess and Sinoe Counties from February 25, 2023, and ended March 17, 2023.
“The Commission will take further steps to publish this key customized software that will be used during their registration exam setting up of the servers, training of NEC staff by the vendor, and the Country of the Biometric Equipment must all be done before the start of the registration”
In a related development, the Commission has reviewed and is finalizing the regulations that will guide the voter registration exercise and other activities, voter’s registration procurement process activities for the pending biometric voter registration are in progress. By Taisiah K. Merfee
