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One of the requirements of the election law is candidates who had contested parliamentary elections must report details on their election campaign-related expenses as provided for under section 69 of the Electoral Act 2018.
Acting Chief Electoral Officer Mr. Fredrick Bosoboe said that withing 90 days from the date of the official publication of the election results in the gazette for any particular national parliamentary election, all candidates both winning and losing must submit their election campaign expenses to the Chief Electoral Officer.
Mr. Bosoboe said that the official publication of the West Kwaio Constituency by-election result is on Wednesday 28th September 2022.
“90th day counting from Wednesday 28th September 2022 is Monday 26th December 2022. All candidates contesting this by-election must within this 90-day period, submit all accounts of election campaign expenses incurred during and for their campaign trail”, Mr. Bosoboe said.
“As of today, contestants in the recent West Kwaio national by-election day have only 76 remaining days”, Mr. Bosoboe reminds the candidates.
“Along with these election campaign expense accounts, the law also requires, candidates to disclose, all sources of funds or donations received towards their election campaign activities”, He adds,
Mr. Bosoboe said that candidates must disclose sources of funds from which they received funding support and as well as give a detailed report on how these funds were spent.
These election campaign expense accounts must be submitted on a special prescribed approved form that can be collected from the Electoral Commission office either in hard or soft copy or can also be downloaded online from Electoral Commission Official Website, www.siec.gov.sb .
There are two forms that will be used to submit these expenses. The first one is for the submission of all the expenses and the second one is the declaration form to certify the integrity of your report. This declaration must be signed by the candidate and attached to the expense report.
Mr. Bosoboe highlighted that failure to comply with these requirements by law results in heavy penalties.
“If a candidate fails to submit his or her election campaign expense accounts within the 90 days given period, he or she is in breach of the electoral law and would face a penalty of 20,000 fine and or 2 years imprisonment” He expressed.
On top of that, for each day that a candidate fails to submit the report after the lapsed of the 90 days period, he or she will be charged an extra $100 fine for every day he or she fails to submit after the lapsed of 90 days given period”
To avoid paying accumulation of this $100 unit each day for failing to submit, candidates are encouraged to must submit within this 90-day given period.
If you want to know more on how to go about submitting these candidates’ election campaign expenses, do call Lindsey Indu on Phone 7648766 or send an email to lindu@siec.gov.sb to get a copy of the forms.
For Election Happenings, follow SIEO Facebook @SIelectoralcommission page and website at www.siec.gov.sb Or for general enquiry, you can call the office hotline phone at 7222200 or landline 21198.
