“Such an announcement can only be done after the commissioner would have had a consultation with the president and that is currently going on. After that the commission will bring out the final date for elections,” he told AYV.

Jones addressed other issues raised by NEW, noting that they were well prepared for the conduct of the elections and sticking to the electoral calendar, adding that they were not ready “to accept anything that might disturb the process”.

He said they were almost finished with the boundary delimitation process, emphasising an earlier position that they were not ready for redistricting and they had nothing to do with it.

“NEW and the people of this country have nothing to worry about. We are not ready to accept anything that will delay the conduct of the elections, especially when it is not within the framework of the law”, he said.

Meanwhile, the political parties’ registration commission, PPRC, had refused to talk on the issue raised by NEW.

It could be recalled that NEW this week released a press statement calling on the NEC to release a specific date for the 2018 elections. That, according to the statement, was to avoid implications for would be aspirants who were currently in public offices, noting that aspiring candidates were expected to resign from public offices 12 months before elections day.

Its public relations officer, Ngolo Katta, told a press conference in Freetown that they were concerned that the undue delay in pronouncing the actual election date might not create a level playing field in the electoral arena, since the date was set by the Chief Electoral Commissioner in consultation with the president.