A policeman monitors voting activities at a polling station in Clarendon during the February 25 General Election.Photo: Naphtali Junior
DESPITE an eight-fold increase in the allocation to the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) for voter registration activities, there is still no provision in the budget for the house-to-house reverification of voters, which was a point of contention between the major political parties leading up to the February 25 General Election.
This was highlighted yesterday at the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives in its deliberations on the budgetary allocations to various ministries and departments of Government. The budget for registration activities for this fiscal year has been moved from $48.2 million to $397.2 million.
“The funding is not in the budget and that is something that the Government will have to discuss with the electoral office,” Finance Minister Audley Shaw stated.
He said it would cost $2.2 billion to carry out the exercise, which it was pointed out must be done by next year. Under the law, a reverification of the voters’ list must be done every 10 years. The last one was completed in 2006.
“It (the 10-year period) would end this year, which means that no later than the next fiscal year we will have to put in place the funds for a full reverification exercise. The funds have to be found not later than next fiscal year… the funds will have to be found. It also means that in consultation with the electoral office, if there are any steps that need to be taken prior to getting the process going in the new fiscal year, the preliminary funds will have to be found probably in the supplementary estimates,” Shaw said.
Leading up to the general election, there were varying estimates of between 200,000 and 500,000 names of “dead” people said to be still on the voters’ list.
At the same time, no funds have been set aside in the estimates for local government elections. Shaw said that while no funds have been set aside “at this time”, appropriate arrangements would be made for its financing if the parish council election must be held by the end of the year.
