After months of controversy over whether his contract should be renewed, the Guyana Elections Commis-sion (GECOM) yesterday took a majority vote not to renew the contract of embattled Chief Election Officer (CEO) Gocool Boodoo.
Sources told Stabroek News that Chairman of GECOM Dr Steve Surujbally voted with the opposition commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Sandra Jones against the renewal of Boodoo’s contract. The three commissioners appointed by the government, Dr. Keshav Mangal, Mahmood Shaw and Jaya Manickchand, had voted in favour of a renewal and this led to a deadlock which was broken by Surujbally.
Boodoo’s contract expired on April 30, 2013. However, he went off the job days before his contract came to an end.
Boodoo’s hopes of a contract renewal were deflated by explosive revelations last week by opposition-appointed commissioner Vincent Alexander that the CEO changed a formula at the 2011 general elections which nearly erroneously handed the PPP/C a parliamentary majority. Boodoo has not responded to Alexander’s charge. It was Alexander who detected the changed formula on the day the official results were to be announced. His objection caused the correct formula to be applied by Boodoo and the joint opposition ended up with a one-seat majority.
Alexander wrote in a letter to Stabroek News, “Every day, there is someone referring to Boodoo’s action, in his preparation of the results of the 2011 elections, as a mistake. There was no mistake. Mr Boodoo was singularly responsible for converting the vote count into seats. This was not his first exposure to the task. It was his third. There is only one formula for converting the votes into seats. How could it be a mistake if a factor in the formula is changed? There was no error of calculation. Sixty-five (65) replaced forty (40) in the formula. Let it be known that no calculations were presented to the Commission for scrutiny. Signed declarations were presented. There was nothing for the naked eye to discern. It was my academic knowledge of the system and my constant explanation of the system to students that equipped me to discern the false declaration (result). When challenged, Mr Boodoo responded that he was right and was presenting the correct results.”
Hitherto, the near erroneous declaration for the November 2011 election was said by GECOM to be a mistake on the part of Boodoo. However, Alexander in his letter rejected this thinking and said that it was a change of one of the factors of the formula for allocating seats.
While Boodoo continues to be silent on the matter, Dr. Surujbally had in May last year said that he had accepted that the incorrect declaration that was about to be made by Boodoo was nothing but a human error until he saw proof to the contrary.
“What is of such great import is that the system worked… the system worked. The law is that the Chief Election Officer would bring the calculation, bring his report to the commission and the commission would bless it or not,” Surujbally had told Stabroek News then.
Vishnu Persaud, Public Relations Officer at GECOM, said yesterday following the decision not to renew Boodoo’s contract that in the interim, Deputy CEO Calvin Benn will be acting in the position of CEO while the Commission advertises for the position. Persaud said that the position will be advertised in as wide a manner as possible.
Vice Chairman of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine said that GECOM’s decision is a welcome development. “GECOM has taken an inevitable decision. There has been so much dissatisfaction over the last three elections. GECOM has moved in the only direction available to them,” said Roopnaraine in a comment to this newspaper.
Government Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira when approached for a comment said that she had not yet learned of the developments at GECOM and preferred not to comment until she had done so.
Alexander in a comment said that the advertisement for the new CEO will not be cleared for publication prior to the next statutory meeting on Tuesday.
On July 10, 2013, acting Chief Justice Ian Chang discharged an order he granted Boodoo to block the Chairman and members of GECOM from deciding against renewal of his contract.
The Order was to prevent GECOM from making a decision not to renew Boodoo’s contract without following the procedure that the Commission has established for renewal of contracts for senior employees.
Since April this year, Opposition Commissioners on GECOM signalled their intention to oppose the renewal of Boodoo’s contract because of the elections declaration fiasco of the 2011 elections.
Boodoo’s move to the court followed the plan by the opposition-nominated commissioners on GECOM not to renew his contract. His employment has been the subject of discussion at a series of GECOM meetings.
Prior to the High Court proceedings, attorney Murseline Bacchus representing Boodoo had written GECOM calling on it not to conclude its deliberation on whether Boodoo’s contract was renewed until his performance appraisals for 2012 and 2013 were completed.
The letter, which was dated June 6, 2013 and addressed to Surujbally, stated that Boodoo was denied due process. Bacchus said that in accordance with Boodoo’s last contract from 2010 to 2013, a performance appraisal was to be completed and this should form the only basis on which the work of the CEO shall be measured. The attorney said that this annual performance appraisal was never done in respect of the 2010 to 2013 contract and that no reason has been proffered for the situation.
Boodoo then sought an Order directed to the Chairman and Commissioners of GECOM to show why they have not renewed his contract which came to an end on April 30, 2013 and to thereby quash the decision not to automatically renew the contract on the grounds that the decision taken not to automatically renew the contract is being made in bad faith, undermining and interfering with the applicant’s constitutional right to work in the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.
There was no reply from GECOM to this letter and Boodoo then moved to the courts.
