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Late payment of requisite funds stalled process
Local Govt. Elections delay…
GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally
Local Government Elections could have been held this year if the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) had received the monies necessary to pay De La Rue for the production of the new Identification Cards earlier.
This educated opinion was expressed by GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally, to the entity’s Commissioners and the Chief Elections Officer, in a document which this newspaper was able to peruse.
Dr Surujbally was responding to recent assertions by President Bharrat Jagdeo, dismissing them as “unfair, deleterious, inaccurate and ill-advised statements about GECOM” adding that some of the statements have been repeated by influential members of the People’s Progressive Party, Government Officials and the party’s newspaper, the Mirror.
According to Dr Surujbally, it is both understandable and inexplicable why the President would be “disappointed” with GECOM as it relates to the fact that the Local Government Elections (LGE) cannot be held this year.
GECOM’s Chairman pointed out that on March 17, 2009, “with uncanny prescience, perspicacity and farsightedness, the President developed a scenario relative to the paths, associated with the conclusion of the deliberations of the Joint Task Force for Local Government Reform (JTFLGR), which would be taken…. This forecast was shared with the nation and published by the media…The President proposed those (aspects of the Bills) you can’t reach agreement on, we will deliberate on these issues; if you can’t reach agreement then the next thing is to go to the Parliament with a draft Bill and have the debates take place there … “. This is exactly how it played out in the end…how can the President be disappointed, when he himself so ably predicted how the sequence of events would unfold?”
Dr Surujbally also informed the GECOM Commissioners that the Joint Task Force was in existence for over eight years, during which time “it plodded its way through the morass of irresolution, intransigence and indecision.”
He pointed out that at any time during that period the president could have intervened (as he eventually did) adding that, “when finally the discussions broke down, some select Bills went to Parliament, and thence to the Parliamentary Select Committee, and (after no common agreement) back to Parliament where the Bills were accepted by a majority vote, while the combined Opposition Political Parties in Parliament walked out en masse.”
Dr Surujbally also noted that notwithstanding GECOM’s efforts to engage itself with the activities which did not need the passing of the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill 2009, it is imperative that GECOM receives the legal base to proceed with the Local Government Elections.
“To this date, neither the Chairman nor the Commission has received the final text of the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill, 2009…. In fact, up to the time of writing, the disappointed President has not given his assent to this piece of legislation…After not being disappointed for eight years, and after not doing anything to rectify and speed up the JTFLGR’s activities, how can one be legitimately disappointed when the Local Government Elections are postponed only for a few months?”
The GECOM Chairman also questioned how the president could be disappointed with the postponement of the Local Government Elections when only on June 11th, 2009; GECOM received the money to pay De La Rue for the production of ID cards.
De La Rue had not moved towards preparation of the ID cards before the company received payment.
He also pointed out that the contract with De La Rue documents a four-month preparation period (identifying sources, procuring teslin and laminate, agreeing on security features, purchasing die cutters, sending staff to Guyana, trial runs, etc.) before the first ID cards will be produced.
Dr Surujbally informed commissioners that everything was calculated on the basis of those four months’ of preparation.
“Had GECOM received the money four months before June 2009, then the LGE could very well have been held this year.”
According to Dr. Surujbally, all these facts must be known by the President not lastly because the Office of the President is directly involved with GECOM which became a Budget Agency in December 2003.
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