Concerned members of the public are accusing the electoral commission of not doing its work to investigate reports of ID card buying.
Spokesman of a concerned group Jimmy Kai said it is surprising to hear from the chief electoral commissioner that the electoral commission is treating reports of ID card buying as rumours.
“The comments from chief electoral officer Polycarp Haununu simply shows the electoral commission failed miserably to carry out its work. How would you treat these as rumours when these things are actually happening in front of your eyes and the commission did nothing or even attempt to investigate these issues,” Mr Kai said.
He said what Transparency Solomon Islands (TSI) came out with such report in the media, it shows that it is true and they have witnessed and experienced individuals working for some current MPs and intending candidates approaching them to buy their cards in exchange for money.
Mr Kai questioned what evidence is the electoral commission looking for before addressing this issue.
“Some MPs go as far as asking for your ID cards before they will accept your project applications or requests. Why for the past four years nothing has been forth coming and now these MPs use the ID cards to lure people in order to accept their projects. This is unacceptable and clearly speaks of the corrupt practices of our leaders,” Mr Kai added.
He stressed that the electoral commission and police has failed to do their work resulting in such activities being entertained by men who worked for these MPs and intending candidates.
However chief electoral officer Mr Haununu said the electoral commission cannot act on these reports since they haven’t received any formal complaints of ID card selling.
“Until today, we have not received any formal report of incidences of ID card buying. So we call on the public to formally report their cases to us and identify those involved so that we can report it to police to investigate these reports,” Haununu said.
The CEO urged the public to bring their reports to them other than just complaining about it in the media.
BY DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
