4 months after polls, INEC owes ad hoc staffs N3.6million

Four months after the conduct of elections into the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) area councils, there are strong indications that the FCT Electoral Commission still owes over 300 ad hoc staffs N3.6million.

The ad hoc staffs who comprise majorly of National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members are said to have kept on visiting the office of the FCT Resident Electoral Commission, demanding for the payment of their N12,000 stipend which has remained unpaid.

A highly reliable source at the FCT REC office that prefers not to be named, confirmed that most of the corp members are still trouping into the office, demanding the payment of the budgeted fees for the conduct of the area council polls on April 9, 2016.

Connected Development (CODE) a civil society group which monitored the FCT polls, however confirmed the development through its Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, that even though it could not confirm how many has been paid yet, there is no cogent reason why they have not yet been paid.

“Specifically, we went to the director of finance to know why these funds have not been paid, but I can tell you authoritatively that there is no reason these funds had not been paid, because it is actually in their accounts”, Lawal said.

While commending INEC for the conduct of the elections, Lawal however urged the electoral umpire to go back to the drawing board  ahead of the 2019 general elections; “as we speak to you now, some of the ad hoc staffs that were engaged in the electoral process have not been paid, and these are young NYSC ad hoc staff members, and it is quite sad, because these funds were budgeted for and were released before the elections, we wonder why some government officials are sitting on this fund, so we call on INEC to release these funds”.