GECOM aims to have clean list by October 31 – encountering “serious bottlenecks” with House-to-House procurements – Govt. Commissioner

Jun 05, 2019 News

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Government-appointed Guyana Elections Commission, (GECOM) Commissioner, Charles Corbin has said the Commission is right on schedule in generating a cleansed list in time for the General and Regional elections.

Speaking to reporters following GECOM’s statutory meeting yesterday Commissioner Corbin explained that the process of generating the new list is happening within the stipulated timeframe.
“Based on the available timetable, we are now in the same time scheme with respect to the process, regardless of which method we take – House-to-House or otherwise – since our next deadline for a qualified list is October 31.
The Commissioner said too with regard to the preparation for House-to-House registration, training has been completed and the Commission is only waiting the procurement of certain materials to conduct the exercise.
Corbin’s position appears to be in conflict with the statements attributed to GECOM’s Deputy Chief Elections Officer, Roxanne Meyers. Meyers had revealed that the GECOM Secretariat has calculated that House-to-House Registration would take nine months to be conducted.
She noted that the Commission asked the Secretariat to provide House-to-House Registration as an option to remedy the current Constitutional dilemma.
“The technical analysis, by the secretariat, revealed that House-to-House Registration would take nine months.”
Several contentions were raised by A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) to support their advocacy for House-to-House registration this year. These included the removal of dead persons from the list, the addition of new voters, and the updating of electors’ addresses.
According to their estimation, with the nine-month timeline given by the Secretariat, House-to-House would conclude by December of this year, if it were to commence today, causing a possible Election Day to move closer to the date set out by the Constitution under normal circumstances, than the March 19, 2019 deadline.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Corbin also informed reporters yesterday that the Commission is experiencing serious, significant bottlenecks in the procurement process.
“Procurement is a problem, and the process is still being frustrated at the level of the [National Procurement and Tender Administration Board],” Corbin said.
He said that all that needs to be done now for House-to-House to start is the procurements.
“The training is complete. I think that the offices’ clearances have been given for all the management areas across the country. Those have already been set up.” He said that the enumerators need materials to conduct the process, and that is dependent on the suppliers.
Yet, GECOM had come under fire years ago for procurement issues before. And Corbin said that the commission is working to ensure the circumstances surrounding those are not repeated.
Audits were conducted at GECOM following the 2015 General Elections. The Auditor General’s office prepared three reports based on their investigations into the procurement of radios totalling $100M, the purchase of pliers and the procurement of toners.
The GECOM Secretariat had been accused of deliberately overseeing a system of procurement irregularities involving hundreds of millions of dollars in purchases – from radios, to pliers and batteries, to toners.
Auditor General Deodat Sharma and his team had descended on the GECOM office to investigate worrisome procurement practices at the entity.
One of the activities for the 2015 general elections was the purchase of several communication radios.
It was found that less than 90 percent of the radios were used, despite advocacy by GECOM to the administration for the purchases. Some $100M was spent. The Commission had secured 50 radio sets specifically for use at the 2015 elections. Auditors found that only five of the sets were issued prior to the elections. This means that 45 of the 50 radio sets valued at approximately $89.604 million were not utilised.
The report found that on top of that purchase for the radios, which were all outdated, GECOM went ahead and bought 12 satellite phones for use, in case the radios could not be put into operation.
When Local Government Elections were held in 2016, the radios were still not used.
That issue had attracted the recommendation that “disciplinary action” be taken against officers guilty of negligence or wrongdoing, by the Auditor General’s office.
Asked what is being done to prevent those issues from recurring, he said, “It’s difficult.”
The Commission is trying to ensure it follows all the guidance and regulations of the Tender process.
“In order to complete that process, we need the Tender Board to declare it.”

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