Dear Editor,
Please permit me the opportunity to voice my concerns in relation to the Guyana Elections Commission. The enumerators (temporary registration staff) are being paid a salary (which means NIS and PAYE will be deducted), unlike the previous House-to-House exercise whereby enumerators were paid an honorarium (tax-free dollars). The reason I went to length to explain the above is because GECOM’s permanent staff, when working overtime hours, are not paid the full sum of money that is due to them or the overtime worked would be given back to them hence these enumerators will not be paid any overtime.
Still, on the House-to-House subject, the Chief Elections Officer would have stated that they would have increased registration staff to accelerate the process. Now why it is that registration staff who would have resigned are not being replaced. Instead, GECOM has instructed their registration officers to inform the chief scrutineers to reduce the staff currently at work because GECOM does not have enumerators to send them in the fields with.
I do hope these issues are resolved promptly by GECOM because staff, whether temporary or permanent, should be paid for all the hours they would have worked and secondly, Mr Keith Lowenfield is contradicting himself because GECOM, instead of increased staffing; the amount of enumerators has deceased in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six, when they trained an extensive amount of individuals for the House-to-House exercise.
Advocate for the right.
Sincerely,
Chris Singh
