BY SAMIE WAIKORI
The Solomon Islands Electoral Commission (SIEC) has revealed a proposal to build a permanent office in Honiara.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Jasper Highwood Anisi spoke about this at a press conference yesterday when giving an update on SIEC’s work following the fire incident at the office at Vavaya Ridge last week.
Reflecting on the incident, a big lesson SIEC learned is that they are without a permanent home.
In this regard, Anisi said they want to have a permanent home as soon as possible so they can comfortably deliver the 2028 joint elections.
“As an institution that is at the height of our democracy, it is vital SIEC secures a well-resource office to serve the people,” the CEO said.
He calls on the national government, development partners, and the public to support SIEC in having a permanent office by 2027.
In the meantime, Anisi said they are working on a plan for a new complex building.
“At the moment, we’ve secured engineers and architectures for the design of the new building,” he said.
Anisi added that as long as the work is done, they will know the cost of the building and there is also land that is ready to accommodate the building.
Moreover, he said SIEC also plans to carry out a functional review, as captured in their plan last year.
“Currently, we only have 29 staffs, who ran the joint election in 2023. They were established under the Public Service.
“We want to increase that number to 50 plus, because there is a huge task to operationalize joint elections across the country,” Anisi said.
The CEO said if the new office complex is built, it will be big enough to cater to more than 50 staff.
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