By Prince Musa
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) on Monday concluded a three-day consultative meeting on the planned controversial boundary delimitation process in Kenema District.
A delegation of NEC officials met with some stakeholders in the district with a view to soliciting their input to the draft document which came into being as a result of the 2015 Population and Housing Census.
In line with a Constitutional provision, NEC is expected to carry out boundary delimitation within every seven years, before the conduct of the next general elections. This will allow for the demarcation of constituencies and wards, which either reduces or increases the number of representatives per ward or constituency.
But the pending boundary delimitation is shrouded in controversy because the main opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) has rejected the 2015 census results which it deems as fraud.
NEC though is determined to go ahead with the process. And as part of a nationwide sensitization on it, it is meeting with key stakeholders, like political parties. But the Kenema meeting went ahead without the full participation of the SLPP, some of whose representatives in the persons of the City Mayor, Joseph Samba Keifala, and District Council chairman Dr. Senesie Foday Mansaray, walked out of the opening session.
The document, as presented to the stakeholders at the Kenema District Council Hall on Nyandeyama Road, shows that for Kenema there is no additional constituency. But there are up to 18 additional wards, while the district council saw its wards reduced from 30 to 25. The new arrangement reveals that there will be no more multi member wards in the city.
Philip Bargbo, Director of operation at the NEC, said as a commission they wanted to share the draft document with the various political parties, civil society organizations, media and other democratic governance institutions for their input. He said the increased number of the country’s population meant that there was the need for the addition of more polling centres across the country and that they needed the support of the stakeholders to assist NEC to identify areas needed to place these centres.
Adonis Kanneh, chairman of the district boundary delimitation monitoring committee in Kenema, urged the stakeholders and politicians to look at the draft document critically and make their input.
Meanwhile, the SLPP members of parliament for Constituency 016 in Kenema District, Samuel Brima, as well as Saidu Nico Mansaray of Constituency 011, reminded the meeting of their party’s position on the provisional census results.
© Politico 03/08/16
