We’ve all finances required to conduct 2023 elections – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has allayed the fears that the it was having financial constraints to conduct the polls, saying all arrangements were on course for the conducts of the 2023 general election as it had received all the funds needed to conduct the general elections.

The Commission speaking through its Kaduna State Administrative Secretary, Awwal Mashi during a stakeholders’ meeting and training of members of Kaduna State Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on the workings of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), said, “we have gotten all the funds required for the conduct of the general elections”.

Mashi also said that, the Commission had recently held a successful mock accreditation to ascertain the functionality and efficacy of the BIVAS machine, saying that, “satisfactorily, the machines were perfectly okay. I can assure you that God willing, we will not have any problems with our machines”.

Mashi said that about 408,000 new Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and 228,000 others transferred from other locations were received by the Commission and almost 90 percent of them had been collected by the owners before the close of the PVC distribution exercise.

He said that sensitive materials for the election were already secured at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), while 70 percent of the non-sensitive materials have already been distributed to the INEC state offices.

“We have employed 34,000 personnel to conduct the elections in the state, this figure includes the Adhoc staff that will man the 8,012 polling units in Kaduna State

Speaking on funding, the INEC Chief said, “Let me use this opportunity to tell you that, all funds for the execution of the general election have been sent to us. Everything that is required in term of financing have already been received and that includes for transportation, payment of ad-hoc staff and others; everything has been sent to us.”

The meeting featured questions and answers session and participants were made up of politicians, traditional and religious leaders among others, while the training of the journalists was characterized by practical demonstration of how BVAS device works.

Speaking on behalf of the trainees, Chairman, Correspondents’ Chapel, NUJ Kaduna, AbdulGafar Alabelewe, expressed appreciation to INEC for the training, saying that, the training was necessary in view of the new innovations introduced to the conduct of the 2023 general elections.

He however urged journalists to deploy the knowledge acquired while covering the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, as well as the March 11 governorship and state assembly elections.

(TNT)