Migration, death, and even imprisonment are among the reasons why some city residents on the national register have not collected identification cards from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), a check by this newspaper has found.
When Stabroek News visited approximately two dozen city addresses listed for persons who have been identified as having failed to uplift their identification cards, some also laid blame at the door of GECOM as they said that they received little to no information about the collection of their cards.
And despite the publication of the list of 18,512 who have not collected their cards, several of these persons remain unsure of where they should go to get them.
The order accompanying the GECOM list, which was published in the four daily newspapers, indicates that those listed must present a birth certificate or a certificate of registration of a foreign birth or a valid passport or other requested supporting documents at any GECOM registration office in the area where they live.
According to the order, by fulfilling this requirement on or before Decem-ber 2nd, 2019, the listed individuals will be ensuring that their name is included on the final list of electors for the next General and Regional elections. “Failure to satisfy this requirement will result in your name appearing in a special section of the Official List of Electors (OLE) on Elections Day. You must note however, that your registration record in the National Register of Registrants (NRR) shall not be cancelled,” the order explains.
In Albouystown, the names Shamar Kalladeen, 16, and Vishal Kalladeen, 15, an uncle and nephew who are below the voting age, were listed. Shamar yesterday told Stabroek News that his mother had accompanied him and his nephew to get their national ID cards over a year ago. He explained that they were unable to collect the cards since his mother did not have the time to accompany them back to the GECOM office to enquire whether they were ready. “Plus they had tell we that they would send us a letter to know when we can go and collect it but we never get any,” the teen said.
He also noted that he was unsure that his name was among the list of defaulting registrants published by GECOM.
Nonetheless, he said he plans to go with his mother this week to uplift his ID card.
Devon Cromwell, 29, of Lot 130 King Edward Street, Albouystown, has spent the last three years in prison and he was also unaware that he was listed among the persons who are yet to collect their ID cards. While he was not present at the listed address when Stabroek News visited, his mother said that it is likely that he will go and uplift the card now that he is no longer in jail.
A few persons cited the hassle they faced at GECOM as the reason why they stopped making enquiries about their cards.
At Middle Road, La Penitence, Abeola Bascom was relieved. “I am happy to know that he is going to get it, so I don’t have to go with him all the time anymore,” Bascom, the mother of a teenager who was on the list, said.
Jaheem Ceres, 16, of 204 Middle Road, La Penitence, had applied for his Identification card at the Croal Street GECOM office when he was 15-years-old. According to his mother, after applying, persons from the GECOM office had visited to verify his address but could not do so because their visits were at times when the teen was not home. “How you going to come at two O’clock for a child who gets home from school after three?” she questioned. “When we went in with the slip to collect the card, they told us that another time when they came nobody was at home but my mother is always home.”
Bascom added that during the house-to-house registration, they applied again and afterwards they went into the office once more to uplift the card. But Ceres did not receive his card and the upset mother said that she told officials not to waste their time because they were doubting that the young man had ever applied. However, she said that now that she knows his card is ready to be uplifted, she would choose a day during this week to take her son and uplift the card.
‘Come back’
Latifa Roberts, 31, of 541 Hibiscus Road, West Ruimveldt, said she was also pushed around by GECOM during her attempts to uplift her ID card. “They said I gotta come back,” she said as she began to recount her story.
Roberts noted that since 2008 she was registered along with her sister and when she went to uplift the card, instead of seeing her face along with her name, she saw her sister’s face on what was supposed to be her card. After the mix up, she and her sister visited their GECOM office to have it corrected and while the correction was done for her sister, she never go her card. She said during the intervening years she continued using an old card she had collected years ago. The woman pointed out that she visited the office on several occasions but after she never received a positive answer, she concluded her enquiries.
Roberts added that now that she knows her card is to be uplifted, she will go to uplift it.
Another person who has not uplifted her card is Dawn Bailey. Her reason is that she has been abroad for 15 years. The address at Lot 20 West La Penitence, where she lived when she was registered, was visited and her husband told Stabroek News that after she migrated she never returned. He said she might return for the holidays and maybe then she will go and uplift the card.
While trying to contact registrants to ascertain why they had not picked up their cards, Stabroek News was told that some persons relocated and had not received any notices from GECOM. This was confirmed by the father of 20-year-old Cindy Clarke, who said the young woman had applied for her identification card four years ago and has since moved out but never went back to any GECOM offices to uplift her card. The address listed for her is Lot 311 Independence Boulevard, West La Penitence but she has relocated to Ogle, on the East Coast. According to her father, she uses her passport as a form of identification because she does not have her ID card.
Death
In addition, death has also been cited as a reason why many cards are still to be uplifted. This newspaper’s search for one man was brought to an end after persons living at the listed address said that the man was deceased. While none of them could give a specific time of death, they insisted that it had been many years since he passed.
This newspaper encountered a similar situation in Alexander Village, where residents said the person listed had died years ago. However, they pointed out that the man’s son also shared the same name although he no longer lived at the location. GECOM’s list did not specify whether it was the senior or junior person who did not uplift the ID card.
At Middle Street, one of the registrant’s listed residence is no longer in existence. Stabroek News found an empty plot of land and neighbours indicated that the former occupant, who was an elderly woman, would have moved years ago and they believed she might have passed away.
In communities such as Kitty and Subryanville, it was difficult for this newspaper to locate persons. In several instances, the registrants no longer lived at the given addresses. Stabroek News observed that many were rented properties, which suggested that the registrants may have moved.
The list of 18,512 comprises 313 registrants in Region 1 who have not collected their cards; a total of 548 cards in Region 2; a total of 2,401 in Region 3; a total of 9,446 registrants in Region 4, which is the largest number of persons within any region, with the largest recorded number being at the Coldingen Registration Office with 2,410, while the four offices located in Georgetown together represented 4,424 of the names on the list. More than half of that 4,424 are from South Georgetown.
A total of 1,094 names from Region 5 have been published; 3,267 from Region 6; 280 from Region 7; 124 from Region 8; 263 from Region 9; and 776 from Region 10.
