SIEC receives more than 13,000 Objections and Ommissions

 

A total of Thirteen- Thousand-Six hundred and forty-six people have been objected during the Objections and Omissions phase of the Biometric Voter Registration process.

Chief Electoral Officer, Mose Saitala revealed at the Police Commissioner’s weekly media conference yesterday.

The conference was jointly hosted by the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force and the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission office.

Mr Saitala said his office has received a total of Six- hundred and Sixty-four claims of omissions as of Wednesday saying, more than thirteen thousand people have been objected since.

“As of yesterday the total number of claims of omissions was only six hundred sixty-four throughout the country, but as of yesterday the total number of those that have been objected to is thirteen thousand six hundred and forty-six, those how have been objected to.

“This is too far above what we have had in the past which is hovering around two thousand only. This presents a big challenge for all of us”.

The Chief Electoral Officer added, the challenge now is to complete such an amount by way of public inquiries within the gazetted time frame.

“This is very challenging because of the conduct of the public hearing is critical. This is probably the most critical phase within the election preparation and the reason is because there are a lot of powers that are delegated at this stage from my office to Revising Officers.

“These are the powers that can actually take a name out from the electoral roll and these are powers that should be exercised with a lot of caution, a lot of good thinking, independent, impartial where it is provided”.

By: Rickson Bau