By Omar Bah
The Independent Electoral Commission’s regional representatives have expressed disappointment over the commission’s continuous refusal to address discrepancies over allowances paid to staff during election duties.
A communiqué shared with The Standard signed by a group of regional staff who asked for anonymity, accused the IEC management of refusing to pay full election duty allowances equally among workers.
According to the communiqué, the regional officers are unhappy with the way they are being treated by the commission, especially its chairman Joseph Colley who they alleged threatened to stop all their allowances if they insist on pushing for hundred percent instead of 50 percent payment .
“The IEC is relying on Section 32.3 which states that ‘With the availability of funds, Commission Members and Staff shall be paid election duty allowance for the period of the election. Election duty allowance shall be paid 50% to those at their posting sites and 100% to those that are deployed during the period of the election,” the protesting staff said.
However according to the staff who comes from at least ten regional offices and accounting for roughly 80% of the IEC workforce in election time, the Election Service Code’s clause that limits regional allowances to 50% is being applied selectively and unfairly.
They claimed to have taken up these issues with the Commission last week in an attempt to revisit the clause but their pleads were rejected outright.
The staff also accused the IEC of requesting full budgets when planning but withholding payments when disbursing funds.
“They always request full allowance for everybody, but they would give some of us only half allowance. They would raised the full budget but refuse to give us full allowance. We want to know where the rest of the money is going,” they alleged.
They further alleged that field teams who were deployed from the headquarters to support registration and other election activities received full allowances.
“This is not fair,” they said. “We spent 45 days travelling up and down during the last registration. We were paid half allowance, but staff that were deployed from the main office got full allowance. Even their drivers received full allowance.
During the 2021 electoral cycle we were paid 50% under this ESC Clause. This 2026 electoral cycle too began with the same payment beginning with the supplementary voter registration conducted between April 8 to May 21st. We were paid 50% while those deployed to the Regional offices were paid 100% allowances and the same thing happened during the recent familiarisation tour of registration centres and the pasting of provisional voter list. So, we want a change to this unjust system. Enough is enough,” the protesting IEC field workers said.
IEC reacts
When contacted for comments, the IEC spokesperson Pa Makan Khan said the 100% allowance is allocated for only those who go on trek, and stressed that those in the regions only receive 50% as dictated by the Election Service Code.
Asked where the other 50% was going, Mr Khan said: “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask them to tell you where it is going.”
He said the Commission operates based on regulations and he doubts whether the staff have any justifications to claim 100% allowance,