MONROVIA, 5 April 2021, Monday, the National Elections Commission, NEC, Local Magisterial office in Tappitta, Nimba County, has been besieged by aggrieved vendors who provided vehicular services to the Commission during the 8 December 2020 Special Senatorial Elections and Referendum.
The Vendors are demanding that the National Elections Commission pays them for the services they rendered to the Commission during the Special Senatorial Elections and Referendum conducted in 2020.
Besieging the NEC local office in Tappitta, comes at a time when the United Nations Development Program, UNDP and NEC staff were on site to close the UNDP renovation project in Nimba County.
After hours of the standoff between the vendors and NEC, the Ministry of Justice/LNP Officers dispatched to the area brought the situation under control which led to the withdrawal of vendors’ vehicles that blocked the entrance of the NEC Tappitta office and the released of the NEC and the UNDP staff.
Prior to that, the NEC Staff appealed to vendors to exercise restraint as the Commission was doing everything to prevail on the MFDP to provide the funding to pay vendors and payment of other liabilities incurred during the 2020 Special Senatorial Elections. Commission has repeatedly failed to live up to promises it has made to vendors. It can be recalled that NEC has conducted several meetings with vendors in Monrovia in an effort to negotiate payment scheme of liabilities it incurred during the just ended December 8, 2020 election. The National Elections Commission has repeatedly called on the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to provide funding to settle obligations with vendors.
