Hope Madam Chair finds the wisdom to lead

Dear Editor,
What can the public expect today from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)? Hopefully the submission of the CEO’s Report, and finally the swearing-in of a new President. But that was never to be because the CEO perverted the true computation of valid votes.

GECOM is in a situation of its own making. After the series of situations where the CEO was found to be conducting himself unprofessionally and, in some cases, grossly insubordinate to his supervisor, one would have expected that the supervisor would have acted by now to remedy this malfunctionality at GECOM.
That is what leadership demands. But it was never to be and hopefully, with the Court of Appeal now giving her a blank check to pay her bills to this nation, it is hoped that the madam Chair finally steps up and does her job and gets a CEO in place who will follow the rule of law.

So, what is preventing the CEO from delivering an accurate report to the madam Chair? Nothing!
The latest actions from the CEO is equal to serious misconduct in the execution of his lawful duties. The madam Chair has clearly written to him asking for the lawfully sanctioned report in accordance with Article 177 (2) of the Constitution and Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act.

But rather than delivering on these legal instructions, the CEO ran for the hills immediately after the deadline at 13:00h on June 18, 2020, claiming quite dishonestly that he has been served, totally abandoning his office and his lawful duties. I was advised that only a written order from a court could have prevented the CEO from carrying out his functions and a Notice of Motion is not such written order directing him to act in a certain manner or prohibiting him from doing his job. So, the question to ask is, why did the CEO run for the hills?

This sort of insubordinate and grossly negligent action on the part of the CEO demands that his supervisor (in this case the madam Chair) acts. The CEO’s actions have placed the entire operations of GECOM at grave risk and the majority on the seven-person Commission cannot reasonably have confidence in the performance or reliability of him going forward because he has established a pattern of poor performance.

When called upon to act professional and chose to deliver for team Guyana, he always reverts to delivering for team PNC. Well then let team PNC at Congress Place hire him and let him serve them in his partisan manner and leave the professional function assigned to the office of the Chief Elections Officer to a professional.
For how long more will the madam Chair allow this frustration to continue; it is now 113 days if she was not counting. The only reasonable course of action to professionally progress this process is to terminate the contract of the CEO with immediate effect and hire an election professional to serve in the role who will fulfil the expectations of this nation by following the rule of law.

I pray that the madam Chair finds the wisdom to lead. I remain hopeful.

With regards,
Sasenarine Singh