Jaffna poll monitors say not paid

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 May 2004, 08:39 GMT]
The consortium of NGOs in Jaffna said Saturday that PAFFREL, a leading elections monitoring group in Sri Lanka, has not paid four hundred and sixteen persons whom it hired to monitor polls on 2 April in Jaffna. The consortium wrote on Friday to PAFFREL seeking the fees it promised to pay the persons it hired in Jaffna. The polls monitoring body hired persons at 150 rupees (1.52 USD) for monitoring work on 2 April. Polls Independent monitoring of the 2 April general elections was funded by several international donor agencies.

“We told the PAFFREL that 150 rupees was half of what an unskilled labourer is paid for a day in Jaffna. But Dr. Jehan Perera who spoke to us on behalf of the PAFFREL said that the polls monitoring body had not received adequate funds to pay more”, said a spokesman for the Jaffna Journalists’ Association which had provided 175 persons for polls monitoring work on 2 April.