Jerome Korkoya chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC) told the Liberian Senate on Wednesday that the Commission will need US$17.6 million to conduct the 2020 special senatorial election and the national referendum simultaneously in 2020. According to Korkoya, when he appeared before the Senate plenary, the US$17.6 million budget is an adjusted budget from the US$24.4 million for elections and US$4.8 million budget previously submitted by the NEC to the Ministry of Finance and Development planning. He also told the Senate that US$14.8 million of the USD$17.6 will be used for elections while US$2.6 million will be used to conduct referendum. We also reduced the period for hiring of civic and voter educators, we reduced that from four months to one month. Senator Wesseh: “The constitution says we should hold elections, it didn’t say how elections should be held.

Source: Front Page Africa December 19, 2019 05:15 UTC