Chief Referendum Officer acknowledges the funding support from the National Government and says that the support comes just in time to support BRC enrolment efforts.

The Bougainville Referendum Commission’s (BRC) Chief Referendum Officer, Mauricio Claudio, has thanked the Governments of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville for making additional funds available for the conduct of the referendum including the current vital voter enrolment phase.

Mr Claudio today confirmed that the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC) has received further funds this week: “In the last week the BRC received 10 million Kina from the National Government in our account and a further 1.5million Kina has been made available by the ABG. These funds are just in time to support the BRC’s efforts to enrol all eligible Bougainvilleans to vote at the referendum.”

In 2019 the BRC has received 18.7million Kina from National Government and 2million Kina from ABG towards their 27.8million Kina budget.

“The BRC still needs 7.2million Kina to reach our 27.8million budget figure” noted Mr Claudio from the BRC’s headquarters in Buka, “and we will continue to work with both Governments as well as the international community to ensure the BRC has what is needed to deliver a credible and high quality referendum.”

The funding arrives as the BRC conducts a Bougainville-wide campaign of awareness and enrolment, an important first step towards referendum polling in October 2019. All eligible Bougainvilleans have until 17 June to enrol and Community Government ward recorders will visit every community to offer enrolment. A programme of community based awareness is running over the same time period, to provide information to Bougainvilleans on their rights and the process for enrolling to vote.

For further information visit BRC website http://bougainville-referendum.org, Facebook page or contact your local BRC Awareness Officer.

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