Letters to the editor – Page 8

March 20, 2019March 22, 2019

Clarity is needed on that $72.8M payment voucher

There is a payment voucher in circulation purportedly issued by the Ministry of Legal Affairs in favour of Dr. Francis Raphael Alexis for $72.8 million. Dr. Alexis has been retained by Attorney General Basil Williams to argue the appeal in two of the Confidence cases before the Court of Appeal.

I have no reason to ascertain the authenticity of the payment voucher and have some doubt that even Basil Williams would pay such an exorbitant sum in one of the most frivolous appeals before our courts for decades. For now, I am prepared to give the benefit of an explanation to Mr. Williams but ask that he respond to the following questions

1. Is the purported payment voucher authentic and a payment of $72.8 million was made?
2. Is this a final payment, and if not what is the total sum to be paid to Dr. Alexis?
3. What is the scope of Dr. Alexis’ retainer?
4. From which line item is the sum of $72.8 million and any other sum to be paid?
5. At which level of the Government was the decision made to recruit Dr. Alexis and what was the sum approved?

I thank him for his prompt response.

March 19, 2019March 19, 2019

We are faced now with a regime created not out of fraudulent elections but one which is illegal and unconstitutional

The one month extension to the constitutional timeframe for the holding of the 2006 elections has been the subject of much debate and I hope that it is now clear to all that the extension was made in accordance with the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act and the Election Laws (Amendment) Act. Another election to which reference is often made to prove that the results were infected by fraud was in respect of 1997. That election was the subject of an election petition case, known as the Esther Perreira case, and featuring some of the top lawyers of the day including Rex McKay, Keith Massiah, Miles Fitzpatrick, Doodnauth Singh and Ralph Ramkarran. It is important that any distortion or allegation of fraud is addressed by reference to the facts and perhaps helpful for all of us to reflect on other instances in which real electoral fraud took place.

We recall that following street protests led by the PNCR, CARICOM stepped in and as part of the fact-finding process, Cross J. undertook a painstaking audit of the counts of the votes of the general and regional elections. The Commission found no evidence of fraud.

March 17, 2019March 17, 2019

GECOM’s requirement of a minimum period of 148 days to hold elections is an admission of its incompetence

The purpose of this letter is to give a factual summary of the compliance or otherwise with the calling and holding of elections under the Constitution between 1997 and 2015. But before I do so, I have to express some sorrow for Yolanda Ward, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Guyana Elections Commission, who in responding to a letter by a former Deputy Chief Election Officer, showed how much she has eaten her own words and has become part of the incompetence, duplicity and subservience of GECOM under James Patterson, the unconstitutionally imposed Chairman of a perennially divided GECOM.

I set out a history of the critical dates of those elections from information sourced from the records of the National Assembly below.

(E) represents the number of days between the dissolution of Parliament and the date of elections.

March 15, 2019March 15, 2019

GECOM already has access to money for elections, the three-month period is not unusual

GECOM and the Ministry of Finance seem to be engaged in an effort to mislead the public of Guyana over the availability and use of funds approved in the 2019 Budget to conduct elections pursuant to the March 21 vote of No Confidence. Putting up one road block after another, it was not until the middle of February – around the halfway stage of the three-month deadline mandated for the holding of elections – did GECOM seem to need clarification on whether or not it could spend any part of the 2019 allocation of $5,371,061,000 on the elections.

An article in the Stabroek News of February 19, 2019 which quotes Finance Ministry officials, is headlined “GECOM needs parliamentary approval to use budget for new polls.” That this is not true goes charitably to the question of competence and the ability of the Ministry’s officials to read and understand, or more sinisterly, to its intention to become part of the conspiracy by elements of GECOM to frustrate the vote of the National Assembly.

March 9, 2019March 9, 2019

Kirton somehow managed to avoid saying it was President Granger who is at fault

Concerned that President Granger’s refusal to name a date for elections can make Guyana the Region’s newest dictatorship, your letter writer Mr. Wesley Kirton implores “our leaders”…“[to] spare no effort to ensure that our dear country is not brought into global disrepute.” Mr. Kirton volunteered that his letter was being written while he was viewing television coverage of the UN Human Rights Council meeting at which several nations are condemning Saudi Arabia on its human rights record. No doubt Mr. Kirton understands that the right to vote is one of the most sacred human rights available (Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted in the Guyana Constitution) and that having refused to name a date, Granger is not only defying the National Assembly and the Courts – two of the three arms of the state – but also denying Guyanese of their human rights.

What is strange is the suggestion by Kirton that it is some unnamed “our leaders” and not specifically Granger, who are bringing the country into global disrepute. Kirton knows as well as anyone else that it is Granger and no one else who has the power to name a date for elections. But Kirton then shields Granger from the consequence of his failure to name a date by his (Kirton’s) attempt to rewrite Article 106 (7) of the Constitution. With only thirteen days left before the expiry for the holding of the elections, Kirton belatedly calls on Granger to name a date and let GECOM justify its refusal to hold the elections on the date named!