The Electoral Commissioner of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), Mohamed Konneh has said that the counting of presidential results must be done at polling centres across the country.

He made this statement during a meeting between ECSL and the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ). This comes following news doing rounds on social media that the ECSL would be counting the said results at District levels.

According to him, that information was designed to misinform the public and to make it appear as though the Commission intends to rig the forthcoming presidential election.

He further emphasized that from the beginning, ECSL had made it abundantly clear that presidential votes must be counted at the polling centres and that the tallying of results would be done at the regional centres of the Commission.

Partnering with SLAJ, he said, would save the Commission from misinformation by selfish and ill-motivated actors within and with- out the country who want to smear the reputation of the Commission.

It could be recalled that with support from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), SLAJ is going to operate a Super News Room to get rid of fake news and misinformation in the entire electioneering process. However, the Commission is set to commence the distribution of voter identity cards which was postponed to 7th of April. After the distribution of the voter ID cards, the next step will be nomination and payments of nomination fees into the consolidated revenue fund.