By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Some contract staff of the National Electoral Commission in the recent elections have accused the commission's pay team from Freetown and Ward Coordinators in Kono of fraudulently deducting from their remunerations.
Speaking to Politico in Kono after receiving their salaries at the various payment centers in the district, the aggrieved staff also alleged that at one of the payment centers at Njegbwema Town, Fiama chiefdom, the coordinators were running “a well-organized syndicate” with the pay team.
They said that upon receiving their pay they were “forced” into a room where they met with a number of ward coordinators who then asked them to leave “something” for them. They added that the pay team was paying people who did not even work with the commission during the elections.
Komba Sandy, one of the aggrieved staff, alleged that during the payment they were divided into three categories with Category One comprising polling station queue controllers, ballot box controllers and polling centre queue controllers. Sandy said the NEC pay team deducted Le 10,000 from each of them. He said the second category, which comprised the ballot paper issuers, voter enquiry and identification officers Le 20,000 was deducted from their pay while the third category which comprised presiding officers and polling centre managers had to part with Le 30,000 and Le 50,000 respectively.
Sandy said they were prevented from signing their contract documents after they had undergone their election training on the eve of voting day, pointing out that they were asked instead “to register our names on A4 papers”.
He said that was how they removed the names of their colleagues who worked on polling day and replaced them with friends and relatives of the ward coordinators who did not work during the elections.
On Monday morning scores of the contract staff were at the NEC office requesting for payment of their monies. They said the pay team refused to pay them because their ward coordinators who were to identify them were absent. They were told that if they could not produce their ward coordinators, they would not be paid and that they would have to travel to Freetown to collect their monies.
The District Election Officer for NEC, Momoh Kenneh vehemently denied the allegations describing them as “baseless, unfounded and malicious”. He said he was not aware of any deduction of monies from the salaries of contract staff and that payment was done by core staff of NEC themselves. He said that if any monetary transactions transpired between the contract staff and the ward coordinators, it did not cncern him.
Kenneh said they had paid 95 percent of the contrators and the remaining five percent would be paid after a thorough verification exercise by the ward coordinators otherwise they would have to go to NEC headquarters in Freetown to collect their monies. He said they had dispensed over Le 1 Billion to over 4,000 contract staff of NEC who worked in the 17 November elections and that they had done “a good job” of it all.
