THE Government is set to spend close to $700 million on the upcoming general election, according to the latest figures quoted by Director of Elections Orrette Fisher at a press conference held at the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) yesterday.

Fisher said it will take about 20,000 people, inclusive of reserves, to man the 7,039 polling stations on February 25. However, workers will require refresher courses. While noting that there was some speculation surrounding the cost of that activity, Fisher said, according to a previous back-of-the-envelope estimate, if every worker were to be paid, then it would cost approximately $16 million.

Still, he said recruitment already takes into account the possibility that some individuals may not be available on the day and therefore no money would be “lost”.

At a recent sitting of the Upper House, ECJ commissioner and Opposition Senator Tom Tavares Finson had stated that of the approximately $250 million which had so far been spent on election-related activities, a significant portion could be considered lost on the training of election day workers who would have to be retrained.

Yesterday, Fisher pointed out that: “We have basically picked up from where we were (last year)… there are some persons who completed that training and we would have expected that they would have done the work in December. I wouldn’t be satisfied with them going into the polling station without some refresher. The point is, persons who are trained and who do not work are not paid. So if you’re trained, you have to work in order to be paid. Therefore, persons who may have trained and have now decided that they won’t work, there will be no loss.”

He noted that training is not limited to election day workers, which comprise presiding officers, poll clerks, and supervisors, but also include returning officers, assistant returning officers, electronic voter identification system technicians, polling station security assistants, indoor agents, and data entry clerks. The ECJ said payments to these workers should be made by the end of March.

In the meantime, election day workers will have to work extra hard to make preparations as the fact that roughly 1,000 schools are to be used as polling stations means they have less than half-a-day to clean up and prepare these facilities.

As a result, the ECJ has asked the education ministry to close these schools as early as midday the day before to allow workers to set up the venues before nightfall.

“With election set for Thursday, there are some challenges that we must seek to mitigate. The time available between the ending of classes on Wednesday and nightfall leaves a very limited time for workers to set up, clean the polling stations, and arrange them,” Fisher explained.

The ECJ is also asking employers to allow employees who are election day workers to take-off early, or possibly take the entire day off in order to get themselves ready. “I would like to use this opportunity to urge employers to allow workers who have been selected to work during the elections to be given time off to attend the meetings and to collect their supplies. I’m urging the workers who can to apply for the day off,” he said.

In the meantime, Fisher said the police, the military and election day workers will go to the polls on February 22, three days before the rest of the electorate.