It cost the Office of the Electoral Commission $2.5 million to successfully carry out the 2025 general election.

Electoral Commissioner, Tuiafelolo John Stanley said this was an estimation based on everything they prepared for including, accommodations, food, allowances, stationery and equipment.

He said the general election preparations was not something they just did yesterday. He said they had been prepared from 2022, however they had to react faster because of the snap election.

Up to 1,200 polling officials were hired to do the job at different polling booths because the staff of OEC were based in the office to monitor everything.

The allowances of the polling officials, overtime for the staff of OEC who have been working tirelessly was budgeted.

The blackboards that were used to record the official count manually will be stored at the government's storage house at Vaiusu together with the ballot boxes that were used for pre-polling, special voting and general election.

Tuiafelolo said the general election was costly because of the preparations to meet the deadline of the snap election.

He said they are now working on cleaning, tidying and arranging all the equipment they used at Tuana'imato before moving back to their main office in Mulinu'u sometimes next week.

He again thank God that the official count had concluded and everything was peaceful.

"Of course even though there were errors and mistakes discovered during the official count, I am thankful that everything was peaceful and transparent," he said.