Despite the pending decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the no-confidence case, President David Granger said yesterday that parliament will soon be reconvened to approve the $3.5B recently requested by Chairman of the Guyana Elec-tions Commission (GECOM) James Patterson for holding of general elections.
“So regardless of what happens at the Supreme Court…the Court of Appeal….the CCJ, we are going to ensure that we satisfy GECOM’s request,” he told reporters shortly after the accreditation ceremony at the Ministry of the Presidency for Zambia’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Alfreda Chilekwa Kansembe Mwamba had ended.
The president while speaking to reporters emphasized that government was within its right to seek judicial redress and he later expressed disagreement with public statements made by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) that the current “political uncertainty” is negatively affecting the country’s business climate.
Asked specifically whether engagements with GECOM will continue despite the pending decision of the CCJ, Guyana’s final appeal court, Granger made it clear that he has never disengaged from GECOM. He reminded that he had penned several letters to the elections’ body and the Chairman has written very detailed letters in response about the preparations for elections.
In his letter dated March 19, to Granger, which was in response to a request for a work programme that would see the holding of credible polls in the shortest time, Patterson had said that the Commission would need “an amount of $3.5 billion” and stressed that “additional resources” would be needed to facilitate an early end to the house-to-house process, which the Secretariat originally projected would be concluded in February 2020.
Patterson had said that he has been assured that with a “significant increase in the allocated resources for the exercise and an adjustment in the management arrangements for some procurement activities, the execution of the programme could be restructured to be completed at least two months earlier, in 2019.”
Should this be achieved, he argued, most of the Commission’s concern for credibility and timeliness, and indeed most stakeholders, would be address-ed. “I would, therefore, urge you to support this by providing the required additional resources and appropriate guidance to those agencies and authorities whose co-operation is required if our objectives are to be achieved,” he added.
Financial analysts have argued that there is no need to return to Parliament as GECOM, as a constitutional agency, can utilize the lump sum that was assigned to it in the budgetary process. This sum was mainly intended for house-to-house registration but it has been argued that GECOM has the independence of action to assign it to other purposes.
Granger reiterated that the government, the executive branch cannot interfere in the internal administration and decision making in GECOM. “We cannot intrude, we cannot interfere, we cannot direct them or instruct them” he said to emphasise the point that government cannot instruct GECOM to hold elections.
Cooperation
He said that he is happy with the level of cooperation he is getting from the GECOM Chairman and “as far as possible we are going to satisfy those needs, we are going to go back to the Parliament whoever attends, we are going to go back to Parliament and make requests to ensure that GECOM has everything it needs. We are committed to having clean elections, credible elections in this country [and] as I said I will engage GECOM to ensure that the request made to me by the Chairman will be satisfied. In other words we are going to ensure that whatever happens at any level of the judicial system, Guyana is going to be prepared.”
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has already said that neither he nor the other opposition members will attend any sitting of the National Assembly prior to the CCJ’s decision. So far, two sets of appeals have been filed challenging last Friday’s Court of Appeal judgment which invalidated the December 21st no confidence motion. That court, in part, by majority decision ruled that 34 votes and not 33 votes of all elected members of the National Assembly were required for its successful passage.
Asked when parliament is likely to meet to fulfill Patterson’s request, Granger said that he could not give a definitive date.
He said that in dealing with the money that the GECOM Chairman has asked for “we have to prepare that bill because when we were deemed by the Supreme Court that there was no cabinet, we could not go to the National Assembly because only cabinet could submit a bill to the National Assembly.”
According to him, with the setting aside of the ruling of the Chief Justice “Cabinet has sat and we have decided to go back. I can’t say when but the earliest date possible, every convenient speed.”
Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire on January 31 ruled that the motion of no confidence was validly passed and that with its passage, the Cabinet, including the president, should have immediately resigned in keeping with the provisions of Article 106(6). While there was no meeting of cabinet after that ruling, ministerial plenaries were held.
Meanwhile in response to the GCCI, Granger told reporters that “it’s a misperception. There is no chaos or confusion or crisis in the political situation. Everything that has happened since the 21st of December has been logical and on the part of the government it has been within the framework of the law.”
He stressed that he doesn’t know how “valid” that perception is but as far as he is concerned the government has done “nothing to engender any disorder or any despair in the business community.”
Accordingly, he noted that “I don’t want to say whether that’s a valid perception or not but we are continuing to work [and] naturally people felt that there was some chance that the claims made at the different levels in the political community were valid but we don’t think so.”
Granger told reporters that everything government has done thus far in response to the passage of the no confidence motion is in accordance with the law or the constitution. “I have tried to point this out, so if that is the perception well I think it’s quiet unfortunate but I will meet them, I will meet the Private Sector Commission, I will meet any group as long as I am in the country to do so and assure them that everything we have done has been open, transparent and in accordance with the law.”
GCCI’s immediate past president, Deodat Indar had said on Monday that letters were penned to the president and the opposition leader last week regarding the effects of this uncertainty on the business environment, based on the findings of a survey. Up to that point neither had responded.
“We have said to both of them that we avail ourselves to them to lend support to whatever outcome to better the situation. I think at the end of the day, all we want is that businesses have a stable environment to operate in,” he had said at a press conference held to introduce the newly elected GCCI Executive and Council.
The president yesterday indicated too that up to last Friday when the Court of Appeal handed down its ruling government had utilized its legal right. “I understand from the newspaper, the opposition is using their legal right to go to the CCJ. That’s not a crisis, that’s not confusion so I don’t think that the perception that you’ve spoken to me about is a valid perception and we will continue trying to do our best to give the people of Guyana, a good government and a good life.”
GCCI’s president Nicholas Boyer and Senior Vice-President Timothy Tucker had insisted that the “political uncertainty” continues.
Boyer had stated that this situation will continue to affect the business climate in Guyana until the CCJ delivers a final ruling.
“The faster that we can get to a steady environment, the faster all of us can really be more strong and firm in our planning processes back in our offices, because it is really hard to set out a two-year or three-year strategic plan when you open the newspapers and you still have that uncertainty hanging over,” Boyer had said at a press conference.
