Who will pay public servants after March 21, 2019?

Mar 09, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Why would the President of Guyana have to meet with the entire Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) in order to discuss that body’s readiness to hold general and regional elections? And why only now?
There was no need for that meeting which took place yesterday between GECOM and the President. It is outside of the norm for any President to host the entire Commission at a meeting
None of the other presidents of Guyana, as far as one can recall, ever had reason to meet with all the Commissioners in order to be apprised of GECOM’s preparedness to hold elections. Not Burnham, not Hoyte, not Cheddi Jagan, not Samuel Hinds, not Janet Jagan, not Bharrat Jagdeo and not Donald Ramotar.
Meeting with the entire Commission is not the standard way in which the President is updated on GECOM’s readiness to hold elections. The normal way is that the President writes to the Chairman of GECOM, indicating an intention to hold elections soonest, and asks to be advised as to the earliest day by which GECOM will be ready to do so. Alternatively, the President can in advance signal to GECOM that he intends to call elections on a specified day and enquire into whether the election body can meet this timeline.
The media and the public are becoming tired of this circus, which is taking place in terms of holding the elections. The outcome of the meeting was as predictable as the sun rising each morning.
There was no need to wait until the most unholy hour, a mere two weeks before the Constitutional deadline to hold elections, before GECOM should have been asked about their readiness. This should have been formally done since December 22, 2019, the day after the no confidence motion.
But it is understandable that the President was not in the country and could not have done so then. But at least when he returned he should have done so at the earliest opportunity, notwithstanding the legal challenge which his government and a private citizen has launched against the validity of the NCM.
In early January and before the Chief Justice’s ruling on the NCM, the Leader of the Opposition got duped into agreeing to have the respective Chief Whips agree to meet with GECOM on its readiness. Nothing much also came out of that process.
Why then did anyone expect anything concrete to emerge out of yesterday’s meeting? It is public knowledge that the Guyana Elections Commission is divided on the issue of the holding of elections. One faction – and there and have always been factions – wants to drag out the holding of elections until after April 30, 2019 and wants house-to-house registration after that.
House-to- house registration realistically will push elections back until April next year. House-to-house registration cannot be completed in time for elections this year.
The other faction wants elections by the constitutional deadline of March 21, 2019, or latest one month after that. The public, and no doubt the government, is fully aware that on this issue the Commission stands as a divided house.
The President therefore should not have met with the Commission unless the Commission itself had decided on when it feels it can hold elections. No agreement was likely to have emerged from such a meeting, because the Commission itself has not settled the issue as to where it stands.
The Leader of the Opposition is not going to be strung along by the government. He will not agree to any election based on house-to-house registration, because he knows that realistically this cannot be achieved and will not be in compliance with the Constitution.
Guyana therefore is about to enter a constitutional crisis. Foreign loans will not be disbursed; international aid will be frozen; visas for official travel will be restricted because the government will be illegal; problems are going to arise as to the legitimacy of the government in representing the country internationally; investors are going to be circumspect; government would not be unable to pay its workers and its suppliers or issue new contracts. In addition, more importantly the political enemies of Guyana will be looking very closely to see how they can take advantage of the constitutional crisis, which will erupt.

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Who will pay public servants after March 21, 2019?

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