The recently held National Stakeholders Conference, organized by International IDEA continues to serve as an eye opener on the level of preparedness by Election Management Bodies (EMBs) to Civil Society Organizations, the media and development partners as well as elections observers in relation to the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), level of preparedness as the clock ticks towards Saturday 24th June.
As promised by the Chief Electoral Commission Mohamed K. Konneh, in his statement touched on the specifics, which were realized when the Directors, Operations, Training, Media, Electoral Education and External Relations, ECSL occupied the stage on the state of Election Preparedness in detailed.
Directorate Operations disclosed that since the end of the 2018 elections, they immediately commenced preparations for the upcoming elections.
With regards what has already been done the Directorate said polling staff already training on Accountable Procedures, recruitment of polling staff already.
The Directorates further updated that 70% of non-sensitive materials already available, identified centres that required temporal structures completed, accreditation of local and international observers completed.
Movement plan of polling materials, zonal storage facilities closed to polling centers settled.
The Directorate informed participants at the National Stakeholders Conference that the two most sensitive materials like ballot papers and the reconciliation result will be deploy on the eve of elections.
The ECSL’s Directorate of Training at the time of the stakeholders’ conference training for supervisors was ongoing.
They said since 25th -28th May, Management Staff Content of Processes and Accounting Procedure of votes developed and rolled out.
District Managers trained in Makeni and Bo for both regions with a manual on Polling Accounting Procedure sets.
Directorate, Electoral Education said new deployment strategy incorporated partners, content materials for 1st time voters in place, already rolled out political parties training programme across the country, awareness raising targeting groups on the nature of elections that will attract PR System.
Directorate of Media will concentrate on department collaboration will make use of two media house per district.
In relation to training, the media directorate told participants that they have conducted district training for senior media practitioners on election reporting related issues.
Directorate External Relations deals directly with political parties, civil society and other external matters dealing with election observers, international partners among other.
The directorate disclosed for the June polls the will not be issue vehicular pass.
The Directorate had already accredited all international and regional observers and the process of accreditation continues.
