Today, Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Mukesh Nand and Australian High Commissioner to Fiji John Feakes signed an agreement under which Australia will contribute FJD 258,000 to Fiji’s Electoral Commission to support the conduct of an independent audit of the National Register of Voters. The independent audit was a recommendation of the Multinational Observer Group of the 2018 Fijian Election.
The audit, to be conducted by an independent organisation, will be scoped, commissioned, and overseen by the Electoral Commission, which is the custodian of Fiji’s National Register of Voters. The audit will include an audit of procedures, an audit of IT systems and statistical testing to assess the quality of the voter register and voters list through the “list to voters” and/or the “people to list method”.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, High Commissioner Feakes said “On the request of the Electoral Commission, Australia is pleased to provide a contribution to support its planned audit of the National Register of Voters. This will assist the Electoral Commission to implement a recommendation of the Multinational Observer Group of the 2018 Fijian Election. Australia is providing funding directly to the Electoral Commission to conduct this work. The Audit will be commissioned and managed by the Electoral Commission”.
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Mukesh Nand added “The audit aims to support the Electoral Commission to make a determination on the manner in which the FEO is maintaining the Register, and where necessary provide relevant direction to the FEO to improve the manner in which the Register is kept.”
The Electoral Commission has conducted a call for expressions of interest from suitably experienced firms and expects to announce results of the procurement process shortly.
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