Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato

A total of K40 million in election funds was released by the Finance Department last week to PNGEC’s account but only K20 million was uploaded while the other K20 million was removed.

He said the K20 million removed was money earmarked for the purchase of big ticket items such as ballot boxes, security plastic seals, indelible ink, voting compartments, stationary and t-shirt’s for polling and counting officials.

Joe Lat, David Akipa and Tetias Narina were three of the many service providers that Loop PNG caught up with outside the Electoral Commission office.

 They claimed that the Electoral Commission is yet to pay them for the services they provided in the 2012 National Election.

“There are good number of us who provided services for the 2012 Elections and it’s not just us, here in NCD but other provinces as well.”

O’Neill was responding to a supplementary question in Parliament from Sinasina-Yongumugl MP Kerenga Kua today.  

Kua asked the Prime Minister to confirm the date of the issue of writs which Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato was quoted in the local media as saying that it will be delayed by one month from the current date of April 20.

O’Neill said: “The dates published by the Electoral Commissioner is that the issue of writs will be on April 20, that has not changed, it will be issued on that date, as far as I am concerned.

“As Papua New Guinea prepares for the National General Elections in April 2017, the Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission has submitted proposals for amendment when Parliament next sits on January 24^th,” explains Political Science lecturer Patrick Kaiku.

Polye made the threat saying the National Elections were a matter of life and death in this country and warned the Electoral Commissioner not to facilitate an undemocratic election.

A fired up Polye made the statements in a media conference claiming he has evidence of foul play being orchestrated by politicians and Patilias Gamato, to rig the elections to favour the current ruling Peoples National Congress (PNC) Party

“He’s facilitating Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to be elected again. Mr Gamato is facilitating the Government and PNC to come back again.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato made this announcement this afternoon, just after closing time at the Electoral Commission headquarters in Hohola, Port Moresby.

In an exclusive interview with Loop PNG, Commissioner Gamato said the extension was basically to give intending candidates and political parties time to go through the process and to return all the paper work on time.

Commissioner Gamato said there were electoral regulations in place for this to take place to collect election data.

All intending candidates must fill out the Form 29 - Candidate Bio Data Form from PNG Electoral Commission’s provincial offices or PNGEC Headquarters in Port Moresby.    

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato said the early submission of candidates’ bio data and photos is an administrative matter to assist PNGEC when printing candidates’ posters for all polling booths nationwide.

PNG Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato said these are, reduction of campaign period from the current eight weeks to four weeks, separation of national and LLG elections, increase in nomination fee from K1,000 to K10,000 for national elections and K200 to K1,000 for LLG elections, increase in election petition filing fee from K5,000 to K20,000, places for filing election petitions to be restricted to four with one per region; provincial governments to conduct LLG elections, and online registration (enrolment) of eligible voters.

He made this statement in light of the Opposition’s outburst of his comments in a daily newspaper last week on legislations before Parliament to change the election dates.

Gamato said the revised date for the Issue of Writs from April 20 to May 20 depends entirely on Parliament's deliberations on the legislative amendments Bill on election laws to be tabled when it sits on January 24.

"If Parliament, which is the law-maker decides to change the date, I have no choice but to go by the laws that are made by the Parliament."

PNG Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato was quoted in The National newspaper on Monday that the dates for the Issue of Writs may be deferred to May 20 because of legislations before Parliament.  

The current date for the issue of writs is April 20.  

Last Tuesday, Opposition Leader Don Polye held a media conference questioning the integrity of the Electoral Commissioner and the office he occupies.