Boodoo’s contract renewal should not be based on a corrected mistake

Jul 16, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the controversy surrounding the renewal of Mr. Gocool Boodoo’s contract at GECOM and the calculations of seats of November 2011 parliamentary elections (KN Jul 11, 12, 13, 14, etc.).
It seems that the contract is being held hostage to a simple error Boodoo made almost twenty months ago. Right after the election, press reports quoted PNC sources as saying that Boodoo made an error on the calculation of seats awarding the PPP a majority (33) of seats when it should have gotten only 32 seats, but we were not told of the nature of the error until now.
As Peeper wrote (Jul 12), a mistake can be made in the simplest of formula. The error was made 20 months ago and was brought to light and never cited again until it was time to renew the man’s contract. Why wasn’t he reprimanded, penalized, and chastised at that time and why now? It is fair and in the spirit of due process to raise the matter only now?
Readers are being told that Boodoo used a wrong formula to calculate the results. If the only complaint against Boodoo is using a wrong formula and it was corrected before the declaration of results, then that is not sufficient grounds not to renew the man’s contract. There are no other public rebukes of the man’s performance except the calculation of seats – an error that was caught and was fixed.
Mr. Vincent Alexander claims that Boodoo deliberately used a wrong formula in tabulating seat allocation. There is only one formula in the calculation of seats in the Hare system used in Guyana. (Under the Hare system, parties first get “whole” seats and then of the remaining unallocated seats, the party or parties with the largest fraction get the other seats). So a wrong formula cannot be used if there is only one formula.
What Alexander meant to say is that Boodoo used (40) top-up seats instead of the number 65 in the formula (not a wrong formula) in calculating the number of top-up seats for the parties and this number gave the PPP 33 seats.
No evidence is presented to show that Boodoo deliberately inserted 40 instead of 65 into the formula. It could be a simple mistake from fatigue, stress, etc. given the days it took for the results to come in. The important point is the error was caught and it was corrected by GECOM members as well as Boodoo. The public knew what the results were after the November 2011 elections. Thus, it is hard to believe that Boodoo would deliberately seek to manipulate the outcome of seats knowing that the opposition would raise hell. Also, waiting twenty months to raise a matter, especially when it was previously made public, would not stand in court and is unfair to Boodoo, who conceded his error and fixed it. It is akin to breaking an agreement.
Boodoo was not opposed to correction of his mistake and he did not challenge “the 65” instead of “40”. He accepted it as an error and GECOM moved on. Thus it cannot be an issue now for GECOM. If it was accepted as an error in November 2011 and immediately fixed without an objection, why is the man being punished with denial of job renewal for what is now a “non-error”?
Some individuals claim that people want Boodoo replaced to implement their own plans of what they wish to do at GECOM. The institution must maintain its independence and integrity and Boodoo’s hiring and firing should be based on merit and performance. The parties should not be partisan on the issue or use it to settle political scores, as it could be used to bite their behinds in future elections.
For educational value, I wish to note that in a PR system, it is conceivably possible for a party winning less than a majority of votes (49%, for example) to be awarded a majority of seats in parliament, since some countries have a minimum threshold (say 5% as in South Africa) of votes to qualify for seats. But in Guyana, there is no minimum threshold for parliamentary representation, and as such, it is virtually impossible for a party (winning 49%) to get 51% of the seats although it can get less than 49% of the seats. Also, as the Guyana case illustrates, parties that won .3% to .5% can get seats much larger than their voting percentages reflect — one seat or 1.5% of the parliamentary representation.
Vishnu Bisram

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News