By SEPKOLIN WALNE
The Special Parliamentary Committee has conducts its first hearing on the readiness for the 2027 national election, focusing on three government agencies: the Electoral Commission, the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary, and the PNG Defence Force, ahead of the election.
The hearing was to engage with the key agencies to update, progress, and prepare for the 2027 national elections.
Parliamentary Committee Chairman and East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said: “I believe this is the first time in history that we are holding a public enquiry before the elections.
“As you all know, in the 2023 enquiry, your eugenics participated in this process to look at fixing future elections.”
Mr Bird noted that a report had been prepared about previous elections and the role of the agencies in preparing for future elections.
“The issues that fall under your ambit would be rectified by this year,” he said.
Deputy Chairman and Abau MP Sir Puka Temu highlighted the challenges that were found by the committee in the report.
He stressed that the report emphasized seven challenges: Electoral role integrity; poor logistics planning; procurement process delayed; funding timelines; inter-agency coordination; security deployment; and enforcement of electoral offences.
“Those are the key areas that the community identified as major challenges leading to the lack of credibility of the 2022 national general elections,” Sir Puka said.
“The report that clearly demonstrated that experiences from 2022 demonstrate that credible elections require structured planning, predictable funding, operational logistics preparation, and intelligence-led security deployment well in advance of the polling year.
“If we don’t prepare well for the 2027 elections, it will be worse than 2022, we are here to make sure that the 2027 elections are better than the 2022 elections,” he said.