The South Sudan National Elections Commission (NEC) South Sudan on Tuesday declared the start for the preparation for the December political transition with establishment of offices, buying vehicles and civic education for the process.
Addressing a news conference in Juba, Prof. Abednego Akok Kacuol, Chairperson of the National Elections Commission said the national government has deposited some funds in their account to kick start the process and they develop a draft election calendar, once approved by the stakeholders, voters’ registration will start in June.
“An action has been taken by the National Government, they deposited to us some money and this money is given to us because the budget we presented to them is organized in a sequence, the first sequence is pre-elections activities. These pre-election activities they start with accommodation of election headquarters in Juba and then we go to the ten states and three administrative areas” Akok said.
Akok said some of the structures established in 2015 have been deserted by some officials, some of the officials have died while some of them are still in office and so they will go to the field to see exactly the offices and employees present.
The Elections Commission Chairman said they will also purchase vehicles to facilitate the mobility of the election officials and declared that they will also kick start the elections civic education.
“We are happy that today is the second day of my declaration of civic education which is our first priority that the statement released by several bodies have become now a reality that we are going to conduct elections and to do that some funds have been released and we will continue” he said.
The elections commission chairman said a budget for the activities of the commission has been submitted to the parliament by the council of ministers in and the parliament is expected to approve and once approve, the funds for their activities will be release in sequence. He noted that they made a draft elections calendar to be discussed by stakeholders of the commission in which according to the draft the voter registration will start in June but as of now they are concerned about establishing their structures and then training of personnel to follow.
