Disgruntled election officials in Kampala metropolitan are reaching out their upcountry counterparts for a demo against the Electoral Commission over non – payment of their allowances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smlnews has learnt that officials who conducted Special Interest Group (SIGs) elections (Youth, Pwds, Women and Elderly) from village, parish, sub-county, city and district levels have not received a penny despite completing the exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each level of elections under SIGs had a presiding officer, two Polling Assistants and a Police constable entitled to Ugx 50,000 and Ugx 40,000 respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Electoral Commission conducted elections in over 68,000 villages across the country between August and September 20, but the officials have not received any payment since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They now want EC to clear their allowances before another round of elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The electoral commission early this week started the nominations for local councils across the country and the exercise has so far been peaceful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The visible challenge however has been the observance of the guidelines by the Ministry of Health against COVID19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well as the electoral commission is emphasizing SOPs in the electoral activities, only a piece of soap and water were available at election points with no emphasis of masks even for election officials leave alone hardships in enforcing social distancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was visible during SIGs elections and is the case now as nominations continue across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When contacted, EC spokesman Paul Bukenya denied the commission has not paid election officials saying save for isolated cases, all were paid through mobile money transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBesides, the new budget is running and the same officials are still engaged in electoral duties with the commission and will certainly be paid their full entitlements\u201d Bukenya told smlnews in a telephone conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the breach of the COVID-19 guidelines in the just concluded elections for the special interest groups, Bukenya blamed the vice on carelessness on the side of individual participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Disgruntled election officials in Kampala metropolitan are reaching out their upcountry counterparts for a demo against the Electoral Commission over non – payment of their allowances. Smlnews has learnt that officials who conducted Special Interest Group (SIGs) elections (Youth, Pwds, Women and Elderly) from village, parish, sub-county, city and district levels have not received a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\n