Government to spend $2.5B to clean up voters’ list
The Government will be spending at least $2.5 billion over the next two fiscal years to clean up the voters' list, removing hundreds of thousands of names that should not be on the register.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Finance and Public Service Minister Audley Shaw said he met a week ago with the director of elections and an official from the Electoral Commission of Jamaica to discuss the issue.
Responding to a question from his opposition counterpart, Shaw said he would be recommending to Cabinet that the electoral body carry out a "brand new" enumeration exercise.
He said the last full enumeration activity was done some 17 years ago and a reverification exercise was carried out about 10 years ago.
According to Shaw, there are between 300,000 and 500,000 names on the voters' list that should be removed.
For years, there has been ongoing debate about the credibility of the voters' list, with some arguing that thousands of dead electors continue to haunt the process.