There is still a shortage of more than 1,000 officials for the April 21 parliamentary elections, Election Commission (EC) Secretary General (SG) Hassan Zakariyya said.

The EC appeared before the Independent Institutions Committee of the Parliament today to clarify the decision to postpone the parliamentary elections scheduled for April 17 to April 21 following the amendment to the General Election Act. The recent postponement of the election has created an additional challenge in recruiting officials according to the EC.

“The election was to be held in Ramadan and the official allowance was to be increased by MVR 500. But now the allowance will be deducted because of the current rule since it is not Ramadan,” Hassan said he explained.

He said some officials are saying they don’t want to work anymore because they are getting MVR 500 less. A large number of officials have withdrawn their names in the past two days, he said, adding that it is not a risk to take at this time hence they are trying to arrange something for it.