Lack of birth certificates key problem
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) registered a total of 430,746 persons during the house-to-house registration exercise but the initial problem of persons not having birth certificates remained, leaving nearly 34,000 out of the exercise.
However the commission took a unanimous decision to close this exercise and continuous registration which is likely to capture those missed, is likely to restart in mid-October/November this year.
In a statement released to the media yesterday GECOM acknowledged that its estimated target of persons to be captured under the exercise turned out to be unrealistic, noting that the estimated number of persons to be registered should have been calculated from the number of persons who voted at the 2006 elections instead of the number of persons on the 2006 Official List of Electors.
However the statement said the commission was aware that the estimated number was not achievable as many persons would have migrated during the 2000 to 2007 period.
The commission restated that incorrect source documents and the number of unreported deaths may have impacted on its ambitious estimate set at the start of the exercise.
GECOM also reported that the particulars of those registered persons have been encoded as part of the process of the development of the new National Register of Registrants and finalization of those registered will be subjected to the completion of checks for possible multiple registrations via the cross-matching of all fingerprints.
No birth
certificates
The statement also said that some 33,827 persons could not be registered because they were not in possession of their birth certificates. Of these, some 11,370 have applied for and are awaiting their birth certificates, while some 1,905 have refused to apply for registration and another 12,000 were reportedly out of their respective areas of residence and therefore could not be registered.
GECOM said it found the need for a special project to be supportive of the General Registrar’s Office aimed at providing birth certificates for all affected persons. However it said this did not find favour when it was put before Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee during a meeting between this minister, the Registrar General, and the Chairman and Commissioners of GECOM and the Chief Election Officer.
The commission is now at the stage where it is seeking the support and involvement of all of the major stakeholders, including the parliamentary political parties and civil society organisations to get them to use their individual and collective influence to ensure that all citizens have birth certificates.
It has also since compiled a list of the names and addresses of persons who could not register for this reason and in the absence of special efforts to treat with the affected persons, GECOM will be forwarding this list to the General Registrar’s Office requesting that appropriate action be taken to ensure that birth certificates are provided accordingly, the statement said.
Continuous
registration
Though the continuous registration exercise is office based, the commission said it would be dispatching mobile registration teams during this activity to the riverain and hinterland communities to cater for the registration of persons living there.
However, GECOM has explained that the continuous registration exercise cannot commence before the planned mid-October timelines since the commission still has to complete editing and encoding of registration information, cross-matching of registrants’ fingerprints and the publication of the new National Register of Registrants.
The commission in the statement said that it has established twenty-three Registration Offices and four Registration Sub-Offices in ten regions and offices are staffed with permanent personnel who would be responsible for registering persons during Continuous Registra-tion.
It noted too that it may also establish additional Registration Sub-Offices for the registration of persons from specific areas, depending on the demand.
The GECOM Secretariat has already been tasked with developing a work plan in Microsoft project format and the required implementation manual for continuous registration.
This would be shared with the political parties as soon as it is finalized.
Meanwhile, GECOM said it is currently in the process of finding a suitable contractor for the cross-matching of the fingerprints of all registrants to check for multiple registrations after which
National Identification Cards would be produced and issued to all persons registered under house-to-house registration.
GECOM has since shared its reports with the parliamentary political parties and also met with leading representatives of civil society organizations, including the Private Sector Commission, to outline the achievements of the just-concluded house-to-house registration exercise and to underscore the need for their support in the lobby for urgent action to be taken for birth certificates to be issued to applicants.