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The Electoral Commission has announced it will compile a new voters’ register ahead of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary election.

The decision was reached Wednesday at an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting, which also agreed for a limited registration of new voters to be organized by the EC in May ahead of the upcoming district level election and referendum.

The limited registration exercise, the EC said, will take place across all its district officers nationwide.

A statement from the EC said “the Commission will compile a new voters’ register ahead of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections,” but did not give details as to when the exercise will be conducted.

After extensive deliberation among the political parties it was agreed that the district level elections and the referendum be held the same day in the last quarter of 2019.

It said timetable and roadmap for the district level elections, the referendum and other activities of the Commission will be made public in the first week of April this year.

Meanwhile the EC said it has begun inspection of political parties’ offices across the country and that “a comprehensive report on the findings of the inspection would be made available to stakeholders by the end of May 2019”.

On the issue of audited accounts of political parties, it the EC has since March 21 this year published the report as required by law, but observed that most of the audited accounts submitted by the parties did not meet international audit standards.

In view of this, the Commission has agreed to prepare a draft Constitutional Instrument to regulate and streamline the format of financial returns and audited accounts of political parties.