By GEORGINA MICHAEL
ELECTORAL Commissioner Dr Nicole Haley has revealed that preparations for the 2027 National General Election are critically behind schedule, with just six months remaining before the issue of writs.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Committee inquiry on Friday, Dr Haley provided her first update to Parliamentary Committee since her appointment in 2026, admitting that significant gaps remain in the Electoral Commission’s (EC) election readiness despite ongoing efforts to get preparations back on that under her leadership in the past two months, she has ordered a financial track.
Dr Haley attributed the delays to chronic underfunding throughout the electoral cycle, gross financial mismanagement within the Com mission, a lack of adoption of new technologies by the previous management, stalled electoral reforms and out standing boundary remediation work.
Since taking office two months ago, she said she had been working to close the election readiness gap while ad dressing longstanding issues involving internal governance, human resource management and financial compliance Commissioner Haley announced audit into election funds, which has been left unattended since 2014, and a cyber-security audit into the security of electoral data.
She has also migrated the electoral roll data from a private service provider to DICT’s government cloud hosting server arrangements, after the Commission lost access to the data earlier this year.
She added that the EC is looking at having polling on different days to make it easier for women and those living with disabilities to vote at separate days and times, to avoid other people voting on their behalf based on previous records.
In terms of funds, the Commissioner acknowledged the inclusion of the K150 million supplementary budget and the ongoing efforts of the Department of Treasury to ensure the timely receipt of those funds.
“I’m pleased to report that the warrant for those funds has now been issued, and I want to say specifically thatit’s been issued in a manner that supports our current efforts to improve financial management and compliance,” she added.