Sarah Hannan The Election Commission (EC) is short of funds to pay state officials who engaged in election duties at the last presidential election, The Sunday Morning learnt. The EC had not received sufficient funds from the Treasury to pay the officials who went on election duty. When contacted by The Sunday Morning, EC Director General Saman Rathnayake stated that state service employees who went on election duty had to forward their claims to their respective state institutions that would pay them the election duty stipends. The state institutions would then forward the claims to the EC to reimburse the funds. “The state institutions have to forward these payment particulars to the EC, and we would reimburse the amounts to them from our allocations. However, there was a slight delay in releasing these payments as the Commission had not received the required funds from the Treasury.” Rathnayake stated that the Treasury had given priority to paying public sector salaries and pensions as opposed to the dues for election duty. He said that election duty payments, which were an additional expense and requirement, were considered a lesser priority. “The Treasury will release the rest of the necessary funds to reimburse the claims forwarded by the state institutions to us. We will settle those claims as soon as funds are made available,” Rathnayake said. A large number of state employees were deployed on election duty at the presidential election on 16 November.