Nomination fee increase determined by EC advice

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, November 6, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

THE proposed increase to the nomination fees of intending candidates in the 2017 General Election will be pushed through to law if and when the Electoral Commissioner (EC) sees fit to have the changes take effect.

It was revealed by the Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill when referring to a series of questions related to the subject from Member for Rabaul Dr Allan Marat.

“Fact remains elections are getting more expensive, as we all know as former candidates of elections, we know running election cost more than K10,000,” the PM said.

“Now we are reaching close to K400 plus million to run 2017 elections, costs keep on going up because number of candidates increasing.”

“As a result of that getting more costly for the electoral commissioner- I think it was well below k200 million in previous years. So someone has to pay and meet the cost of this.”

He said while it is the government’s responsibility- with the rising cost it was taking a strain on the pockets of ordinary tax payers.

“The government has put these proposals to the electoral commissioner. Electoral commissioner will make the assessment and then will advise us whether he feel necessary that parliament should consider this or no.”

“When this matter is put forward before parliament after the consultation with the electoral commissioner then we will debate whether we increase the fee.”

“Applicable in 2017 elections, quite frankly I don’t know, it depend entirely on the advice we get from the electoral commissioner, if he says yes that will help us meet the cost of running the elections let us put it before the writs are issued we’ve got now before April 20th 5 or 6 months to go there is sufficient time for us to make constitutional amendments where necessary.”

“Our lawyers, state solicitors office, think that this is a adequate time to make the changes because I understand it was over 20 years ago when the last increases were done, between now the cost of doing elections have increased dramatically.”

The PM added the next elections could have as much as over 4,000.

“To run an election for 4000 candidates for 111 seats on the floor of parliament is quiet expensive that is why had to K400 million this year,” he added.