With the possibility of general and regional elections this year, Opposition Member of Parliament Juan Edghill has called on the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to extend its monitoring to social media.
Edghill, a former Chairman of the ERC, made the call while delivering a speech at the launch of the ERC’s Harmony Campaign at the Savannah Suite of the Pegasus Hotel last Friday night.
“We are to ask of the ERC to enhance its diligence and monitoring and even extend that to social media… We must also monitor what is taking place on social media since it can interfere with harmony relations in our country from all sides. Whether it is bigoted views on one’s race, culture, religion or who they are associated with, we have to deal with those issues,” he said while making his call.
Chairman of the ERC Dr. John Smith indicated that the ERC has stepped up its monitoring of social media but noted that there is a shortage of staff in the investigative and monitoring units.
“We need more staff for monitoring… We are still dealing with staffing of the investigative units. All is not in place yet, but we have advertised for five persons,” he pointed out.
Smith, on the sidelines of the campaign launch, told reporters that the ERC is poised to play a “big role” in ensuring unity and harmony prevail during any upcoming general and regional elections.
“We did a good run with the LGE [Local Government Elections], not too many complaints. We are looking for and making sure harmony is there. And if we disagree, we must disagree agreeably, not too much of the abuse because it leads to racial tension and we have to make sure the temperature doesn’t rise or we will have a volcano,” Smith said.
He noted that with additional staff, the ERC will be able to effectively monitor all social media sites in a bid to keep the peace.
Smith, however, stated that while the ERC is expected to play an integral role in keeping the peace in the lead up to any general and regional elections, no budgetary allocation was made for this purpose for 2019.
“We have a budget restraint now that they cut us to $75 million for the year. We will have to see where we are going get the money for the elections from. We might have to ask for a supplementary budget, nobody expected elections and even GECOM is saying they have money for registration but not elections, so we might be in the same boat,” he stressed.
The holding of new general and regional elections is now expected in light of the passage of a no-confidence motion against the government last month. However, the legality of the passage of the motion is now the subject of challenges in court.
