Sunday, January 13, 2008

Budget woes could spell troubles for Guinea's election commission

The chair of Guinea-Conakry’s National Independent Electoral Commission complained the organization was not financially prepared to manage this year’s legislative elections.

Sékou Ben Sylla told Afriquenligne, "Up to now, no budget has been allocated to our institution and our offices are not equipped, hence we have to do with our own means", he said, adding that the equipment at CENA, the institution which supervised the last communal polls and which was succeeded by CENI, were not transferred to the CENI as expected.

The budget issues will make it impossible to allow the 25-person staff proper funds to travel and to build a computer system to monitor the results.

So far, this year’s elections for the National Assembly have been twice rescheduled. Sylla hopes for all parties to agree on a date by the end of January.

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