Dear Editor,
It is imperative that we respond to the letter carried in the Guyana Times of Saturday, April 22, 2017 under the title “Local Government and You”, as authored by Mr Neil Kumar.
Mr Kumar made reference to the published notice pointing out that the period for ongoing Claims and Objections (C&O) is April 24 to May 21, 2017 after the 9th Cycle of Continuous Registration would have concluded on March 18, 2017.
This is patently inaccurate and misleading, considering that the C&O exercise is a component of the 9th Cycle of Continuous Registration, as is evident in the relevant Work Plan which was approved by the Commission.
Mr Kumar went on to posit that “the period indicated above for the second phase of the exercise is approximately five weeks after claims and objections are scheduled to commence”. He went further to state that “the situation so far bares a plethora of obvious suspicious questions which are unanswered” – among which are (i) why the delay? And (ii) was the Elections Commission not prepared?
The start and end dates of the C&O exercise are compliant with those documented in the Work Plan for the conduct of the 9th Cycle of Continuous Registration. Anyone who is familiar with the conduct of a cycle of Continuous Registration would be aware that there was a regime of preparatory administrative and statutory activities which had to be completed, within a relatively tight timeframe, as prerequisites to the conduct of the C&O exercise. Accordingly, we hereby state unambiguously that there was no “delay” pertaining to the commencement of the C&O exercise; and the fact that we commenced the exercise in accordance with the Work Plan demonstrates that the Secretariat was obviously “prepared”, as mandated by the Commission.
It is important to note that — at a meeting between a delegation of representatives of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) (including Mr Kumar) and Mr Keith Lowenfield, Chief Election Officer — Mr Kumar was provided with the opportunity to raise his “plethora of obvious suspicious questions which are unanswered”, and be provided with respective answers. That meeting was held on Thursday, April 20, 2017, i.e. two days before the publication of the letter.
In regard to Mr Kumar’s position — that “the relevance of the continuous registration being done at this time, in the absence of an upcoming election, was questionable, and the matter was raised without any adequate response from GECOM” — we have no knowledge where, when, and with whom this matter was raised. However, had the matter been raised at the meeting with Mr Lowenfield, we would have been happy to provide adequate justification for the conduct of the exercise.
Incidentally, a 2nd letter of similar nature was published in the <<Guyana Times>> of Friday, April 28, 2017 under the title “Appoint the Local Government Elections Commission Now”, also authored by Neil Mr Kumar. In that letter, Mr Kumar questioned the relevance of the conduct of the ongoing Claims and Objections exercise by positing that “such exercises are normally to be followed by elections”. This position of Mr Kumar makes it very obvious that his knowledge relative to the conduct of Claims and Objections as a component of a Cycle of Continuous Registration is relatively limited.
Whereas we are of the view that the explanation/justification for the conduct of Claims and Objections as a component of a Cycle of Continuous Registration will be burdensome in terms of test to include in this response, we must emphasise that such action was approved by the Guyana Elections Commission as a matter of policy.
Sincerely,
Vishnu Persaud
Deputy Chief
Election Officer
