90,000 ID cards still uncollected

May 06, 2010 News

Old cards could be decommissioned soon-GECOM warns

By Leonard Gildarie

The Guyana Elections Commision (GECOM) has expressed worry over 90,000 National Identification Cards (ID) which are still uncollected.
GECOM, in notices published in the daily newspapers yesterday, said that it is concerned that tens of thousands of registrants, who were registered during the 2009 house-to-house registration exercise and the recently concluded Claims and Objections period, have not yet uplifted their respective cards.
“GECOM takes this opportunity to call upon those truant registrants to make every effort to collect their ID cards since failure to do so could pose future problems for such registrants who have shirked their civic duty.”
GECOM warned that it could soon move to decommission all national ID cards which were issued prior to the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise.
“Already, many institutions, including commercial banks-based on their respective security measures – are rejecting national ID cards issued prior to the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise.”
GECOM also warned that ID cards issued prior to the 2008 registrations will not be accepted as a form of identification to vote at future General, Regional and Local Government Elections, since those cards will have no links to the new Register of Registrants (NRR) and to any voters’ lists to be produced. The identification number on the old cards, for example, will not be recognized.
The Commission disclosed that it is currently distributing ID cards from its 23 registration offices located throughout Guyana during normal working hours- Mondays to Fridays.
“This exercise will continue uninterrupted until June 30, 2010. Thereafter, all uncollected ID cards would be withdrawn from the Registration Offices and kept secured at the GECOM Secretariat, Head Office, where they can then be uplifted.”
As at December 14, GECOM reported that 327,225 ID cards were uplifted by the respective registrants. This represents the delivery of 76.2 per cent of the total number of ID Cards produced for distribution.
Local Government Elections (LGE) were scheduled to be held in April but failure to find consensus on elections reform saw the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) unwilling to support any voting until a number of crucial issues are ironed out.
At the end of March, President Bharrat Jagdeo had disclosed that reform consultations will have to go ahead and it was unlikely that LGE will be held in April.
He said that he had met with leader of the Opposition, Robert Corbin, and it was decided that they would make another attempt to provide the opportunity to see the reforms become a reality.
He was unwilling to give a timeline.
Jagdeo had indicated that much of the steam being vented by the opposition may be indicative of the fact that they were not ready to partake in the elections.
According to Jagdeo, the move was as a result of the fact that the administration wanted to approach the 2010 general elections with some level of civility.
He stressed, too, that there might be legal implications about having two elections in a single year and as such the window of opportunity for the hosting of the Local Government Elections this year is narrow.

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90,000 ID cards still uncollected

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