With six key positions yet to be addressed along with a work plan for the hosting of the constitutionally overdue Local Government Elections (LGE) and responding to the government’s amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA), the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) spent most its meeting yesterday on secondary matters.
The procurement of a new biometric clock-in system for its Kingston, George-town headquarters dominated the discussion and left very little time to address the other matters, according to Commissioners Vincent Alexander and Sase Gunraj.
GECOM is currently looking to fill the posts of Deputy Chief Election Officer (CEO), Assistant CEO, Chief Accountant, Legal Officer, Logistics Manager, Civic and Voter Education Manager. Those posts were advertised since early October 2021 along with that of the CEO. The process to fill the vacancy of CEO was a tedious one that ran for more than three months.
It culminated with GECOM’s former Public Relations Officer and DCEO Vishnu Persaud being appointed. At the first meeting of 2022 held on January 04, the Commission decided that a subsequent meeting would address the shortlisting of the applicants and set dates for the interview. However, that is yet to be realized.
Yesterday, Alexander told Stabroek News in a brief telephone interview that the topic of filling the vacancies was not broached during the meeting. Similar sentiments were expressed by government-nominated Commissioner Gunraj who said “we are still to set a time and date to discuss the hiring process”.
The commissioners reported that in addition to the commencement of discussions surrounding the procurement of a biometric clock-in system, the Commission also discussed increasing the remuneration of party scrutineers.
“We have two scrutineers in every registration office, one from the government and one from the opposition, and in total it is about 50 inclusive of the chief and deputy. We discussed increasing their salaries on par with what the government announced for public servants but it is not finalized as yet. We are headed in that direction though,” Alexander said.
Meanwhile, Gunraj said “the scrutineers haven’t had an increase in a couple of years so we decided to discuss that. It is going to be effective this month (January).”
RoPA
More than two months ago, the government released the proposed amendments to RoPA and GECOM is yet to respond or even decide the methodology to be employed in responding. The acknowledgement of the amendments was discussed at a previous meeting but no decision was taken as to when or how the Commission will address it.
Alexander said that he has been consistently raising the issue with the Commission.
“Last week was the last time I raised the amendments and then a decision was taken to discuss it at this week’s meeting but that did not happen. I guess it will happen at next week’s meeting but I cannot say for a fact that it will happen then again,” he said.
Just last week, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira told Stabroek News that the government is still awaiting GECOM’s and the major political parties’ submissions. She added that the amendments to RoPA cannot go ahead until the government has finished drafting amendments to the National Registration Act.
“RoPA consultation is not completed as yet. It is still ongoing and as I said earlier that the process will keep running because we have another piece of legislation to amend and that is the Registration Act. That is being drafted and the process cannot go forward until that is completed,” she had explained.
She also related that the government also invited the diaspora to submit comments and propose additional amendments to RoPA but could not say how they intend to treat the submissions that they have received. The government is yet to hold any public education session on the proposed amendments which speaks to a number of new additions to RoPA. Also, the amendments were drafted without input from GECOM.
LGE
Local Government Elections were constitutionally due at the end of last year but GECOM was without a Chief Election Officer and could not have prepared to host the elections. As such, the Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh wrote to the government informing of such but did commit to confirming a timeline after the appointment of a CEO.
“…the Commission is unable to have those elections held at this point in time. As you are aware the Commission is currently working to conclude the hiring process of the Chief Elections Officer and other senior management staff. Please be assured that as Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission, I will communicate with you on the timeline at which Local Government Elections could be held when the Chief Election Officer is hired,” Justice Singh’s letter to Attorney General Anil Nandlall had explained.
Persaud has since filled that vacancy but no word on a plan has been communicated as yet.
“We have not discussed Local Government Elections as yet but we would push for it. However, before we do that we would also like the issues with the (voters’) list to be addressed,” Alexander said.
The opposition has been contending that the voters’ list is bloated and should be addressed before the hosting of another election.
The deferral of the elections interrupted the sequence of two consecutive elections which were held under the APNU+AFC administration. After winning the 2015 general elections, the APNU+AFC government held LGE in 2016 after a 22-year hiatus under PPP/C governments. The elections were held again in 2018 and were due last year.
With its track record of not holding LGE, analysts say that the PPP/C government will come under close scrutiny to ensure that the polls are held as soon as possible.
In the 2021 budget, the government allocated $1.1 billion for the holding of LGE before the end of the year. Some $237.7 million was scheduled to go towards the printing of 500,000 ballots and other material, while $285.7 million was budgeted for voter education and other programmes. Additionally, $135.7 million was to go towards the training of elections day staff, $81.6 million for rental of buildings to conduct the elections and $75.6 million for meals.
