The Bougainville Referendum Commission’s (BRC) Chief Referendum Officer has thanked the governments of PNG and Bougainville for making additional funds available for the conduct of the referendum, including the current vital voter enrolment phase.
Mauricio Claudio confirmed that the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC) has received further funds last week.
“In the last week the BRC received K10 million from the National Government in our account and a further K1.5 million has been made available by the ABG. These funds are just in time to support the BRC’s efforts to enrol all eligible Bougainvilleans to vote at the referendum.”
In 2019 the BRC has received K18.7 million from National Government and K2 million from ABG towards their revised K27.8 million referendum budget.
“The BRC still needs K7.2 million to reach our K27.8 million budget figure,” noted Claudio from the BRC’s headquarters in Buka, “and we will continue to work with both governments as well as the international community to ensure the BRC has what is needed to deliver a credible and high quality referendum.”
Claudio clarified that the K30 million target that was initially set was what the national government pledged originally before the revision to the BRC Referendum Budget.
The funding arrives as the BRC conducts a Bougainville-wide campaign of awareness and enrolment, an important first step towards referendum polling in October 2019. All eligible Bougainvilleans have until 17 June to enrol, and Community Government ward recorders will visit every community to offer enrolment.
A program of community based awareness is running over the same time period, to provide information to Bougainvilleans on their rights and the process for enrolling to vote.
For further information visit BRC website http://bougainville-referendum.org, Facebook page or contact your local BRC Awareness Officer.
(Chief Referendum Officer, Mauricio Claudio)