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Categorically, GECOM staff should reflect the ethnic composition of the country!

Aug 25, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

I respond to Tacuma Ogunseye’s KN letter, Rohee must explain what he meant by ‘GECOM needs staff that reflects what Guyana looks like’. I am not writing on behalf of Mr. Rohee; he can articulate his thoughts. However, I shall attempt to address Mr. Ogunseye’s, my respected friend’s question/concern.
I remember clearly (a few decades ago) wanting to make some inquiries at the GECOM head office in Georgetown. I was quickly and efficaciously stopped in my tracks from the first point of contact with the security officer. The message I got was that I, an Indian Guyanese, did not have a right to enter that (government) office; that politically sacred space appeared to be the domain of only a particular ethnic group.
Should the composition of GECOM staff reflect what Guyana looks like? Absolutely!
I remember reading an article in a respected media outlet by a former American diplomat to India. He lamented the practice of airlines in India only hiring light-complexioned staff in the planes and stated that such airline staff should reflect on what India looks like. Ditto for the case in Guyana. Indians consist approximately 40% of the population in Guyana; Africans about 30%, and Amerindians 10%. Therefore, the ethnic composition of GECOM ought to reflect this ethnic composition.
Mr. Ogunseye queries, ‘Does the PPP accept the present racial composition of GECOM’s secretariat?’ How can anyone answer such a question when the manager of GECOM had ignored the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC)’s request to provide information regarding the ethnic composition of that outfit? If Mr. Ogunseye is privy to that vital data, he should inform the Guyanese people of it.
Mr. Robeson Benn, the former GECOM Commissioner, claimed that approximately 90% of the senior staff at GECOM is Africans (who comprise less than 30% of the population). Mr. Benn stated that Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson had made his point “emphatically, about the perverse ethnic and political domination, and lack of diversity and racial exclusion in the make-up and hiring practices of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), in his considered –but irrational decision – to reject the top ranked candidate, Vishnu Persaud, for the post of Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) of GECOM”, using his deciding vote to vouch for Roxanne Myers, a less qualified candidate, who is African (see KN letter, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2018/06/19/the-fact-of-the-matter/).
The late Bibi Shadick, also a former Commissioner, also emphasized that such an “unbalanced” ethnic composition at the agency was affecting the smooth running of GECOM. GHK Lall wrote a letter to the press on March 20, 2019, saying that the failure of the GECOM Human Resources Manager to appear before ERC was “damning”.
Categorically – GECOM staff, on the field and in the office, should reflect the ethnic composition of the country!

Yours truly,
Dr. Devanand Bhagwan

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