Dear Editor,
The “fertilisation of suffocating poisonous weeds” is perhaps the mildest description that should be rationally associated with the behaviour and performance of the failed David Granger-led APNU/AFC Government. Central to their devious approach has been the challenging creation of a deliberate political and biased imbalance of Commissioners at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). This quartet has been deceptive rather than impartial in nature, promoting deliberate unconstitutional breaches, which they hope, will aid in providing them with a back door access to power at the imminent elections.
Their actions have influenced a disappointing fraudulent silence from key administrative actors at the secretariat level of the Commission. The trade-off is that on the Government’s side, it benefits because the GECOM quartet has been covertly extending the time for their fraudulent endeavours. On the other side, the Government rewards its agents in GECOM by being conveniently accommodative and muffed while encouraging certain main players to have a bubble in the manipulated framework, to which they have consistently taken advantage.
Towards the foregoing, the consistent following of PNC/R politically guided decisions by President Granger’s unilaterally appointed Chairman proves his political bias. He now leads the masqueraders at GECOM into spending millions of unauthorised dollars to prepare for the obviously unnecessary house-to-house registration as a mechanism of updating the Official List of Electors that runs contrary to the legally specified Continuous Registration Process.
Chairman Patterson ought to be aware that the matter is before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) for a decision since GECOM is a party to the case. It is clear and, therefore, gives no rational position for the spending of the millions of taxpayers’ dollars at their ‘whims and fancies’ in the absence of the decision and the clearly unnecessary procedure. The persons responsible for these spendings should have to answer since the situation brings into question the obvious abuse of the autonomy granted and the created disrepute of the Institution by the biased Commissioners advancing and directing a self-defeating constitutional mandate.
Further, it must now go viral in Guyana that the GECOM Secretariat was not audited following the last two elections. The masqueraders are getting away with murder as the 2014-2015 accounts remain in limbo, given the hundreds of millions of dollars unaccounted for in the outrageous corruption at GECOM Secretariat. Inside sources at the organisation have informed that GECOM stores is a commercial outlet. A wide variety of items including pliers, Inks, all types of stationary, hardware items such as “black tanks” and other building materials are going cheap. The question for the principals of GECOM to answer is when was the last time the Secretariat closed the bonds and stores for thorough stocktaking and balance checks.
It is clear that the GECOM Secretariat has no authority to hire staff since the task of selecting and approving the hiring of any staff at GECOM is solely the responsibility of the Commission. Yet, information received indicates that the GECOM payrolls for the years 2016, 2017, and 2018 were riddled with “phantom” names who received fat cat salaries. Our citizens demand that the spending spree and squandermania at GECOM be halted forthwith.
This column was appropriately notified that during the training activities carried out under the auspices of the GECOM Secretariat in preparation for the illegal ‘house to house’ registration, millions of hard-earned taxpayer monies were lavishly spent. Areas of expenditure include travelling and the purchasing of special meals for GECOM and as a contribution to some highly questionable “wine dine” sport. It was a revelation to know that the special trainers went around the country with their spouses and touring team and they all enjoyed the luxury of hotel rooms, meals, and travelling.
Reliable information received by this column indicates that the GECOM Secretariat has embarked on yet another spending spree. GECOM is proposing to spend a further 75 million dollars to upgrade and distribute ID cards. This is indeed a farcical exercise since GECOM, for several years now, has had a day-to-day system with well-established offices all over the country to replace lost or damaged ID cards. An inside source informed this writer that the 75 million dollars is for the boys at GECOM to get before the Regional and National Elections to do their dirty work.
Oh! “God help us,” was the response from a technical person in respect to the $25 million allocated for the purchasing of fingerprinting kits. It is significant to note that a fingerprinting kit is 2.5 by 5 inches in size and is reusable. The highest quotes of costs for one of these kits is no more than one thousand dollars. This is a blatant rip-off and has been going on over the past few years and must be halted. The allocations for spending must and will be carefully looked at, and be exposed in the future.
Guyanese must rally against this massive fraud by demanding forensic audits of the transactions undertaken by the GECOM Secretariat, which also advances the clandestine ulterior motive of the APNU/AFC cabal.
Respectfully,
Neil Kumar
