defects not grievously P

Administrative defects not grievously deficient to thwart the will of the people – Caricom Report

The administrative defects that were discovered during the national elections recount of votes cast at the March 2, 2020 polls were not grievously deficient so as to deem the results not to be credible. This view was expressed by the sea soned Caricom observer team who in their report submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, conclud ed that despite some administrative failings the March 2 polls were cred ible, and attempts to say otherwise were outrightly rejected. The report was submitted on June 15.

According to the Caricom obser vation team, overall, “while we acknowledge that there were some defects in the recount of the March 02, 2020 votes cast for the General and Regional Elections in Guyana, the team did not witness anything which would render the recount, and by ex tension, the casting of the ballot on March 02, so grievously deficient procedurally or technically, (despite some irregularities), or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and consequently pre venting the election results and its declaration by GECOM from reflect ing the will of the voters.”

The high-level Caricom Electoral Observer Team, deemed “the most legitimate interlocutors” in Guyana’s elections standoff, has concluded that the results were credible, acceptable, and should be the basis from which the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) declares the final results.

The team comprised Deputy

Deputy Supervisor of Elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles; and Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, John Jarvis

Supervisor of Elections of St Vincent and the Grenadines Sylvester King; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles, and Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission John Jarvis.

Barrow-Giles, who led the team, noted, “…the recount results are ac ceptable and should constitute the basis of the declaration of results of the March 02, 2020 elections.”

Will of the people

At every election, people go to the polls to express their choice. This activity is coined as express ing one’s will, and what was clear on March 2, 2020, was that thousands of Guyanese went to the polls to ex press their will.

The will of the people, according to the figures coming out of the re count, shows an overwhelming victory for the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic. The PPP/C secured a victo ry with 233,336 votes cast in its favour, while the APNU/AFC scraped 217,920 votes. For the new parties, the numbers are as follows: A New and United Guyana – 2313; Change Guyana – 1953; Liberty and Justice Party – 2657; People’s Republic Party – 889; The Citizenship Initiative – 680; The New Movement – 244; and the United Republican Party – 360.

Those numbers are reflective of the will of the people, and the Caricom team endorses this as be

ing the figures to proceed with. The report added that there are obvi ous lessons to be learnt from this experience which, going forward, the Government and the people of Guyana must make every effort to rectify in the best interest of demo cratic governance.

“Many of the instances of irregu larities that we witnessed can be explained by either the incompetence of some of the Presiding Officers at the Polling Stations on March 02, 2020, and/or the failure to give ade quate training by GECOM to its staff on the varied possibilities which may have arisen at the level of the indi vidual stations,” the report concluded.

Most legitimate interlocutors

Ever since Permanent Representative of Barbados to the Organisation of American States (OAS), Ambassador Noel Lynch on behalf of the Caricom Group during a meeting of the OAS Permanent Council back in May said Caricom was “the most legitimate interlocu tors” in Guyana’s National Recount, the APNU/AFC supporters have been parroting that statement.

It was repeated several times by caretaker President David Granger.

In a letter to United States Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch, on May 15, Granger said “The Caribbean Community re mains “…the most legitimate interlocutors in the Guyana situation” and that Guyana, equally, is confi dent in the legitimacy, credibility, and competence of the Caricom team to perform its task.

That was in response to the Ambassador’s request to have spe cial arrangements for The Carter Center’s return to Guyana to observe the recount.

In another letter to the United States Congress, Granger again stated: “The Government of Guyana wishes to inform you that the Caribbean Community did send a new team, which is actually at work with the Elections Commission. The Caribbean Community sees itself as “…the most legitimate interloc utors in the Guyana situation” and Guyana, equally, is confident in the legitimacy, credibility, and compe tence of the CARICOM Team to perform its task.”

The recount now proves that the David Granger-led APNU/AFC was involved in some collusion with Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo to thwart the will of the people in favour of APNU/ AFC. It is a fact that Mingo ma nipulated the results of his District – the largest – to give the coalition the victory it wanted. He did so not once, but two times. Mingo inflated the coalition’s votes by 19,116 votes, while deducting 3689 votes from the PPP/C. Neither the caretaker President nor his party has, to date, addressed Mingo’s glaring anoma lies. Ironically, the APNU/AFC has been claiming victory, and that has been based on Mingo’s concocted numbers.

NEWS 23 SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2020 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM GuySuCo misses target by over 9000 tonnes

…as downsized estates continue to flounder

While Guyana has set itself a target of 13,976 in its Strategic Plan.” started producing tonnes of sugar, but only In addition, GAWU said oil, its traditionproduced 11,867; a varithe information received al sectors and particularly, ance of 2109. Meanwhile, indicate that overall facsugar, continue to wither. It Uitvlugt failed to reach its tory performance was far has been revealed that the target of 9410 tonnes of sugfrom acceptable standards. Guyana Sugar Corporation ar, producing instead 8344 “Again, as at mid-May, the (GuySuCo) missed its first and falling short by over three (3) factories in operacrop target by almost 9500 1000 tonnes of sugar. tion operated at an average tonnes. In terms of cane per of 95 hours per week against

According to inforhectare, GAWU said that a target of 140. Frequent mation from the Guyana Albion produced 57.86 factory breakdowns has Agriculture and General tonnes cane per hectare been plaguing the GuySuCo Workers Union (GAWU), (TcH), Blairmont 69.90 TcH for several crops now.” GuySuCo missed the target and Uitvlugt 57.64 TcH. All GAWU reminded that it it had set itself, of 46,475 three estates fell short in has previously drawn attentonnes. Instead, GuySuCo this measurement. tion to these factory failures, could only manage 37,013, Alarmingly, GAWU said, despite GuySuCo having an a shortfall of 9462 tonnes of the industry continues to expanded staff structure at sugar, despite the crop beunderperform, adding that its factory operations deing extended by weeks. it was disheartening to learn partment. The union, there

None of the three esthat no estate achieved even fore, questioned the functates remaining in opera90 per cent of its target. “For tioning of the department tion reached their targets. our Union and more so, the and also its plans for procurAlbion estate had the greatthousands of sugar working spares for the out of crop est shortfall. It had set itself ers, this is most distressseason and planned maintea target of 23,089 tonnes of ing. Additional information nance. sugar, but could only manobtained by the GAWU in“At Uitvlugt factory for age 16,802 tonnes, falling dicate that, as at mid-May, example, out-of-crop mainshort by 6287. 2020, cane yields are far tenance is in progress for

Similarly, GAWU pointbelow the Corporation’s many weeks now and worked out that Blairmont had planned objective as stated ers have shared that they

are instructed to re-use worn parts in areas that required complete replacements. This level of reckless engineering practice directed by the technical team will no doubt eventuate into frequent factory breakdowns during the upcoming grinding operations.”

GAWU said it remains very much disturbed by the laxity on the overall management of the sugar industry, pointing out that the corporation’s performance record over recent years justifies its position. “The coalition Government failed the industry despite spirited claims to make it a resilient

business,” GAWU also said.

Breadline

It was the coalition Government which, after coming into office in 2015 on the slogan that sugar was “too big to fail”, that closed down several estates and put thousands of sugar workers on the breadline with no alternative employment. Even the retrenchment they were legally entitled to had to be gained from the Government after court battles.

Since then, the three remaining estates have been a shadow of their former selves. It was only recently that GuySuCo Chair, John Dow, had cause to write to caretaker President David Granger pleading for funds if GuySuCo was to “be able to survive after the second week June 2020.”

The Finance Ministry in a public missive then replied that “the prevailing national circumstances, coupled with the challenges of COVID-19 and a reduced national income, render the Treasury incapable of providing a bailout to GuySuCo”.

The Ministry said too that additionally, National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited, through the Special Purpose Unit (SPU), had sold lands that were vested to it, and garnered deposits of $2.1 billion. This money, however, was used to offset the $30 billion bond payments that became due in May 2020, adding that the balance of $1.5 billion for the lands will be paid over to NICIL when the vesting orders are signed and gazetted.

The balance, however, is not expected to make its way to the Corporation in its entirety, since according to the Ministry, part of this sum will go towards a bond repayment, which is due on July 4, and the remainder to GuySuCo. It had been announced that money from NICIL would have been provided to GuySuCo sometime this week.