Papua New Guinea Electoral Commission

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato has expressed grave concern that a total of K20 million of election funds has been removed from Electoral Commission’s account and diverted to fund the government’s free education policy. A total of K40 million was released by the Finance Department last week to PNGEC’s account but only K20 million was uploaded while the other K20 million was removed.

The legislative amendment bill to make changes to election laws has successfully passed the first hurdle in Parliament yesterday (February 1, 2017) when it was tabled by the Prime Minister, Peter O'Neil, who is also the Minister responsible for PNG Electoral Commission Peter O'Neil. In the first required vote Parliament voted 74-14 for the changes. Only two members of the ruling PNC-led coalition government voted against the bill.

The master plan for 2017 election, the National Logistics Plan, was launched today by the Chief Secretary to Government Ambassador Isaac Lupari at the Electoral Commission headquarters in Port Moresby. The small but significant event was witnessed by Commissioner Gamato and his staff, members of IDEC who are mostly departmental heads and senior bureaucrats plus PNGEC's international partners.

Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato has called on the Government Printer Christine Lenturut to lift the standard of printing at the Government Printing Office to an international standard. He was responding to a statement by Lenturut this week that the printing of ballot papers for the 2017 national election could have been handled by the Government Printer instead of giving the job overseas.

​The democracy of Papua New Guinea is not compromised. That is the assurance by the Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato when responding to comments by the former Government Printer Ken Kaia and current Government Printer Christine Lenturut in relation to the printing of the 10 million 2017 election ballot papers overseas in Indonesia instead of a local printer.

The 10 million ballot papers for the 2017 national general election will be printed overseas in neighboring Indonesia. Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato confirmed ​this week that this will be done for the first time in history mainly due to the exorbitant printing costs quoted by local PNG-based printing companies including the Government Printer which traditionally prints ballot papers for PNG elections.