After weeks of criticism, Registrar General Greta McDonald has said that the General Register Office (GRO) did supply the confirmation of the death of late former president Arthur Chung to the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) in the month following his passing in June 2008, although he remains listed on this year’s preliminary list of electors (PLE).
Earlier this month, Gecom’s Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally confirmed that deceased persons were still listed on the PLE due to negligence by the GRO, which falls under the purview of the Home Affairs Ministry.
But in a brief statement on Thursday, McDonald said the GRO is deeply concerned with the views being expressed in the news media about its role in providing death returns to Gecom.
“The General Register Office is deeply committed to its moral support role to Guyana Elections Com-mission by supplying timely, on a monthly basis over the years a list of all registered deaths lodged at the General Register Office unto August 2014,” the statement said.
The statement included copies of hand written dispatch records for death returns from 2014, while one was issued in November 2013. No names were provided on the receipts delivered to Gecom.
The GRO remains “morally committed to providing via its competent, efficient manual system a monthly return of all registered deaths” to Gecom, McDonald added.
In the statement, McDonald said the death return of Chung, who died on June 23, 2008 was sent to Gecom in July 2008 and Gecom has recently so acknowledged.
However, Stabroek News was reliably informed that there has been no official statement by Gecom acknowledging receipt of Chung’s death return.
Speaking to Stabroek News, the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield stated that Gecom has never refuted that the GRO supplies the commission with monthly death returns.
He added that since he was elected CEO there has been consistency with the GRO.
At a press conference, Surujbally had addressed Chung’s presence on the PLE and said that although the former president has been dead since 2008, the GRO has not issued any death certificate to Gecom to have the name flagged as deceased on the PLE.
Surujbally had stated that the information disseminated by the GRO needed to be at a certain standard prior to a registrant being removed from the National Register of Registrants (NRR) and the PLE.
“I cannot review the Ministry of Home Affairs’ policy. General Register Office comes under that ministry—a ministry or department that, to this day, is not, is not computerised!
Can you believe that? But be that as it may, there is efficiency. I am not saying that they are inefficient, there are laws that we have to go by… it should be not incumbent but it should be in our interest to try and tell them look send the damn list,” Surujbally said of the GRO’s part in ensuring information is given to Gecom to have dead persons flagged on the PLE.
Meanwhile, General Secretary of the ruling PPP and Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had brushed off the GRO’s role in presenting information that would lead to an acceptable Official List of Electors.
Rohee had said that Gecom was not doing enough to verify certain queries made by the party over names on the PLE. Rohee said there were approximately 2,958 names of dead people still on the list and Gecom needed to address this issue.
Stabroek News had asked why Gecom was being questioned over its verification abilities considering it was the GRO, which falls under the purview of the Home Affairs Ministry—Rohee’s subject ministry—that holds the responsibility to provide information to Gecom to have those persons stricken from the list. Rohee responded that the “GRO cannot submit anything to Gecom unless that name is struck from the list based on a death certificate that is issued.”
He said it was the relatives of the dead who needed to go to the GRO and register the death. He has become agitated when pressed on the issue by the Stabroek News, while stating PPP could not do the work of Gecom.
Rohee said that Gecom had a responsibility to “sort it out” with the GRO. Rohee had not commented on why the GRO was not more inclined to ensure that persons were registering deaths and if the office was inclined to be more proactive in getting persons to register deaths.
