20 Jun 2012

Funding woes imperil PNG's Hela election

1:38 pm on 20 June 2012

The chief executive of Papua New Guinea's newly created Hela Province, William Bando, says he has no money to complete the elections due to start this weekend.

The Post Courier reports that an allocation of just under five million US dollars has already been spent.

The Hela Transitional Authority, which Mr Bando heads, is still waiting on a 380,000 US dollar reimbursement from the Electoral Commission to subsidise costs for the remainder of the election period.

He says he doubts polling can begin this Saturday.

Another factor is that many of the Hela people are Seventh Day Adventists and so would prefer polling to start on Monday.