GECOM losing autonomy with Govt. pulling purse strings - Commissioner

GECOM losing autonomy with Govt. pulling purse strings – Commissioner

Nov 23, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – For one year now, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has not been being paying its rent for several properties, which it occupies since money is not being released by the Ministry of Finance’s National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).

GECOM Commissioner, Vincent Alexander

This was among the damning revelations supplied over the weekend in relation to the inner workings of the Commission, as explained by opposition nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander—at the time, a Guest of Christopher Ram’s ‘Plain Talk’.
Questioned specifically on the financial autonomy of the Commission with regard to its budgetary spending, Alexander cited as example, the state of affairs with regard the outstanding rentals to be paid.
He told Ram, GECOM is currently in a situation where it is questioning its level of autonomy.
According to Alexander, this is evident in the fact that NPTAB has, until recently, refused to release money for about a year for the payment of buildings rented.
To this end, Alexander explained that consequently the Commission is, at present, unable to issue any new contracts since each will have to be retendered (buildings rented by GECOM).
This, he said, would have to be done before any ‘tenancy agreement’ can be deemed acceptable to NPTAB. “So for one year, we have not been paying because of this.”
He has since surmised, “…this is evidence of GECOM losing some of its autonomy.”
The Commissioner used the occasion to observe too, that the development appears to obtain at a time when legislation was passed to change the way in which GECOM’s budget is presented to the National Assembly.”
To this end, the GECOM Commissioner opined, “there seems to be a taking away of some of the autonomy GECOM enjoyed up to 2020.”

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