As the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) trade blames over the hitches that have become the lot of the ongoing voters’ registration, tongues are now wagging over the application of the over N502 million budgeted by the commission for the training of the registration officers.
Also, the commission budgeted N10.8 billion as honoraria for the conduct of the registration but none of the corps members received a dime as at the start of the exercise. Despite claims of having trained the corps members, the INEC itself admitted that the they were computer illiterate.
While some of the Corps members confided in Daily Sun yesterday that they were not trained at all on the use of the Direct Data Capturing (DDC) machines. Some of them who actually underwent training prior to the commencement of the exercise, described the training as a crash arrangement, which offered them little insight into the operations of the machine.
One of the corps members, registering voters at a unit in 2.1, Kubwa area of the Abuja suburb explained that she was at one of the trainings but that all the complaints made during the training exercise were never attended to till the registration started. She stated that same challenges were now cropping up, adding that they were not surprised that the machines were developing faults.
INEC had in its budget and cost estimates prepared last October, (a copy of which was made available to Daily Sun) and which was presented to the National Assembly on the basis of which the N89 billion requested for the voters’ registration was approved by the lawmakers, provided for N502, 598, 624.00 for training of those that would be involved in the registration exercise.
Initially, INEC had earmarked 340, 000 corps members for the exercise but later reduced it to 240, 000, who were expected to man 119, 973 designated units. Each of the corps members were to be paid N30, 000 for the two-week exercise with upfront payment of N10, 000, a total of which INEC estimated in its budget to be N10.8 billion.
However, due to the hitches that attended the registration from the start, the commission was unable to pay any amount before the commencement of the exercise, a situation that angered most of the corps members.
INEC National Commissioner in charge of Information, Prince Solomon Soyebi had apologized to the corps members and the general public over the situation. Much noise was made by the commission when it commenced the train-the-trainer programme, a programme meant to train those who would in turn train the corps members, but the final training of the corps members was not publicized as did for the train-the trainers.
However, some of the INEC staff who spoke to Daily Sun yesterday on condition of anonymity wondered what happened to the budget for the honorarium and the training. When contacted, Director of Public Affairs of the commission, Emmanuel Umenger faulted the claims of the corps members insisting that all the 240, 000 of them needed for the exercise were duly trained.
On the budget, he denied knowledge of how much was earmarked for the training or the honorarium.
“My brother, I am not aware of the budget please,” he said. He explained that the commission had no problem with the NYSC or its corps members, adding that the situation had improved nationwide going by information available to the commission.
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