The Ministry of Social Protection approached the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) to disaggregate the information of all persons who are 65 and over from the national voter’s list in order to ensure that all pensioners are in receipt of their old age pension, according to Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence.
“The information will be used by the Ministry to ensure that all pensioners receive their pensions,” Lawrence told the National Assembly yesterday, in response to a question from PPP/C Chief Whip Gail Teixeira.
Teixeira asked the Minister what database was sought and received from Gecom and in what way the information would be used in the work of the Ministry.
“Let me on the onset indicate to this House that the request from the Ministry of Social Protection to the Guyana Elections Commission has absolutely no ulterior motive and the information which we sought, Sir, is that which is on the website of Gecom and it is also in the public domain via the lists…,” Minister Lawrence said in response.
Upon a further inquiry by Teixeira, on whether the Ministry sought information from the voter’s list or the national register of voters, Lawrence said that the information sought is that which was listed on the website and on the documents posted in the public domain.
“What we basically asked Gecom to do with that information was disaggregate those persons 65 and over as of December 15,” the minister said.
A similar query was made to Minister of Education Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, who said that he had requested the information from his technical advisers and he has not yet received same but assured that as soon as this is done he will circulate the answer.
In a letter to this newspaper, Gecom Commissioner Vincent Alexander, who is also an advisor at the Ministry of Education, had indicated that what he requested are read-only CDs of the Official List of Voters, which are to be used for address-verification by the ministry’s school placement officers.
