FOUR weeks after the presidential/senatorial election was conducted, some ad-hoc staff recruited for the 2023 general elections are lamenting over continuous delay in payment of allowance by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The electoral umpire had conducted the presidential/senatorial and governorship/state house of assembly elections on February 25 and March 18, respectively.

Prior to the polls, the Commission had recruited over 1.4 million ad-hoc staff, according to Vanguard report of January 3, to assist its workforce to conduct a free and fair election, and had set out a certain amount to be paid as allowance to the recruits.

While some temporary workers have been paid, others are lamenting they were yet to receive payment.

Concerned about the unfortunate situation, an ad-hoc staff [name withheld], who served as a presiding officer in one of the polling units under Ward 11 in Alakuko, Lagos State, expressed her grievance.

She told The ICIR on Friday, March 24, that allowance for the presidential election has yet to be paid to her as well as for the governorship poll.

“I and some people still haven’t seen our money. But some people testify to having seen just one of the payments,” she said.

The presiding officer had earlier disclosed to The ICIR that comments on a WhatsApp platform created for ad-hoc staff in Ward 11 were filled with complaints over delay in payment of allowance by INEC.

According to her, 90 per cent out of 91 participants in the WhatsApp group chat, which represents 82 persons, have not been paid.

“A number of ad-hoc staff are expressing grievances and are unhappy in our WhatsApp group chat. I can’t say of other [ad-hoc staff] who are not in the group chat whether they haven’t been paid too,” she lamented. “I have not been paid too for the governorship/state house of assembly election.”

Her understanding is that ad-hoc staff were to be paid immediately or at least three days after each election.

Another ad-hoc staff, who also served as a presiding officer in one of the polling units in Ward 5, Kosofe, Lagos State, corroborated her claims.

“We were engaged to be paid N13,000 each for the election. But who knows how many of the over 1.4 million ad-hoc staff are waiting for INEC to pay their allowance,” the ad-hoc staff said.

However, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to INEC’s Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, in a chat with The ICIR on Friday, March 24, noted that the Commission provided enough funds to cover the allowance of all ad-hoc staff engaged for the 2023 General Election.

“So, there’s no reason why any legitimately hired ad-hoc staff would not be paid,” he said.

According to him, it has become the norm for some individuals to come out to complain after every general election or any election for that matter that they were hired as ad-hoc staff and were not paid.

“But when we investigate such claims, we discover that many of them are not true,” he said.

He also argued that in other instances, some ad-hoc staff give wrong account numbers and when money is transferred to these accounts, it bounces back.

“I would advise all ad-hoc staff who are sure that they were legitimately engaged, performed their duties satisfactorily but were not paid, to channel their complaints to the Resident Electoral Commissioners in their respective states, with evidence at their disposal,” Oyekanmi added.