Thursday, January 21, 2016

Election Alert: What is the IEC hiding?


Some Members of the IEC
Chairman Mustapha Carayol of the Independent Electoral Commission has been forced to attend next Monday's meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee locally known by their acronyms PAC/PEC after failing to honor previous invitations.

Failure to attend PAC/PEC has added to speculations that the Chairman and his members of the discredited  Electoral Commission that they are following strict orders from State House.

"The Chairman is doing whatever possible not to face the Public Accounts...to present his institution's accounts and the Activity Report for 2014", according to a source.

Endless excuses have caused even the APRC Majority Leader Fabakary Tombong Jatta to lose patience with the illusive Chairman of the Commission who has been using the supplementary registration exercise as reason for postponing his meeting with PAC/PEC.

Chairman Carayol's letter to the Clerk of the National Assembly requesting an April meeting date with the Joint Committee has been refused by Members.  Instead, the IEC Chairman has been asked to come before PAC/PEC on Monday, and even after this our source said "he [Carayol] is saying his audited accounts are not ready."  In spite of any of the reports due from the IEC have reached the Joint Committee, members are still expecting the Chairman's showing up on Monday, according to our source.

This brazen display of incompetence and lack of trustworthiness is one more reason why the Chairman, who is occupying the seat illegally and  members of the IEC, some of whom lack integrity, should not be trusted to manage the upcoming elections in a fair and transparent way.

We are being reminded again as to why the opposition must not participate in the 2016 president and the 2017 National Assembly elections unless there is a total and absolute overhaul of the electoral laws under a new and reconstituted IEC.  The current set up has been corrupted beyond repair.