By ANAYO OKOLI

UMUAHIA—ABIA State House of Assembly has said local government council election in the state could no longer hold in January 2013 because  the electoral commission, ABSIEC, was not prepared.

According to the House, the commission does not even have a budget for the council election.

Besides, the House said that there were still many more things to be done by the commission for proper council election to hold, such as delineation of political wards, party primaries and other logistics.

Deputy Speaker of the House, Chief Alwell Asiforo, who explained this at the monthly briefing  on the House activities, said after looking at the problems confronting the commission, it  resolved to shift the polls to a convenient date to allow the commission put its house together.

Also, Chairman, House Committee on Information, Okere  said a meeting with the chairman and members of the commission revealed that the commission had nothing on ground to hold the election in January 2013.

He said:  “Apart from not having any budgetary provision, the delineation of political wards the commission embarked on was inconclusive before the commission fixed the election date for January.

“ABSIEC does not even have the funds; they have not done the delineation of political wards and they have not had party primaries, which would take about three or more months.”

“They have not been done other logistics associated with such election, based on these, we then came up with the idea that the elections will not hold.

“If we did not act the way we acted, the commission would have gone ahead to sale forms to the people and before first week of January come up with the announcement that the election will be shifted to a later date.”

According to him, the House is not against holding a democratic election into offices in the 17 local government areas of the state,  but insisted that the proper thing must be done to prevent politicians from wasting their money on an exercise that will not hold.