The 2017 National Election budget has increased by 40 percent compared to five years ago.
Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato revealed that next year’s election budget increased by 40 percent from the 2012 election budget.
He said of the K400 million in 2017 election budget, K121 million will be for security operations while K297 million will be for election operations.
In the last election the National Government allocated K180 million whereas for 2017 it allocated K297 million, an increase of K117 million.
Gamato outlined the 2017 election budget break-up as follows:
Logistics – K127.30 million
Finance – K73.56 million
Awareness – K15.00 million
Training of Temporary Election Workers – K7.00 million
Other Additional Costs (New Legal Fees) – K11 million
The electoral commissioner added that at total of K60 million will be used to settle PNGEC’s outstanding bills form the 2012 election and 2013 LLG elections, K43 million for legal fees and K17 million for general service providers.
File picture.