MillerBalford Henry, Senior Staff Reporter
AN ALLOCATION of $750 million has been included in the 2002/2003 budget to cover expenses for the next general election.
The amount includes a grant of $346.6 million directly related to the election process, including fees for returning officers, presiding officers, poll clerks, indoor agents and other temporary staff.
The grant for holding elections will also cover the cost of training programmes for polling station staff, purchases of integrity lamps, digital cameras, ballot boxes, identification kits and other expenses relating to 7,500 polling stations.
An Election Centre, to be established to monitor events surrounding the event, will also be financed from this sum.
Another $184 million has been allocated to cover the registration of qualified electors, processing the demographic data to produce an updated voters' list and the production of voter identification cards for each registered elector. The functions under this activity are undertaken by 60 returning officers, 67 office managers and registration clerks, as well as temporary head office staff, enumerators, scrutineers, eight regional supervisors and administrative staff of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC).
Just over $217 million covers recurrent salaries and allowances for the staff of the EAC and the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) as well as operating expenses.
Information Officer at the EOJ Neville Graham said yesterday that the Office had sent in a budget for this year's proposed general election. However, he said that no comment could be made until they had reviewed the allocations in the Estimates of Expenditure for the 2002/2003 fiscal year.
The EAC, however, should be specially pleased with the inclusion of funding to cover the Election Centre. EAC chairman, Professor Errol Miller, announced the setting up of the Centre at a meeting with Gleaner Editors last month.
He said that it would be staffed by representatives of the recognised political parties, the security forces, the group Citizens for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), international observers and EAC representatives.
He said that the EAC was currently seeking a location for the centre and equipment to furnish it and that as soon as the date of the election is announced the centre would go into operation.
In 1997, the Government allocated $653.4 million for that year's general election, but the bulk of that amount was spent on voter registration. Most of the $482 million allocated for this purpose was used to cover database servers, fingerprint matcher system, data storage and peripherals and data collection kits used in that process. Only $53 million of that amount was allocated for costs associated with the actual holding of that year's general election.
