None of the 11 political parties which contested the March General and Regional Elections (GRE) has submitted their declaration of expenses to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) as required by law, sources familiar with the matter have revealed.
Following a report that political commentator Christopher Ram had written GECOM Chair Claudette Singh requesting copies of these declarations, this newspaper reached out to the two major political parties and several of the smaller parties which appeared on the ballot.
Josh Kanhai of The New Movement (TNM) said that his party was not aware of the requirement.
“We were not aware of this procedural requirement and the topic did not come up in any meetings the joinder had… but we will look into it and move to comply,” he said.
TNM campaigned jointly with A New and United Guyana (ANUG) and The Liberty and Justice Party (LJP). Together they hold one seat in the National Assembly which is currently occupied by Lenox Shuman.
Shuman also appeared unaware of the requirement. When contacted he asked for time to apprise himself of the necessary information and later indicated that though he had reached out to his party’s general secretary and vice chair on the matter he had received no response.
Timothy Jonas of ANUG when contacted acknowledged that they had failed to comply.
“This is an obligation that must be honoured unfortunately ANUG has not yet complied. ANUG has been operating on a shoestring budget consequently we do not have an accountant on retainer to swiftly compile the information but we will get it done,” Jonas explained.
He noted that the regulation which calls for all spending in excess of $100 to be reported with an accompanying receipt makes the process a tedious one.
“The amount contemplated is outdated and ridiculously small,” he said.
Robert Badal of Change Guyana also indicated that his party has not complied.
“I saw it in the papers and we will move to comply,” he said when contacted.
Calls to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) party agent Zulfikar Mustapha went unanswered as did calls to APNU+AFC agent Joseph Harmon. APNU+AFC campaign co-chair Raphael Trotman was also unreachable as was Presidential Candidate of The Citizen’s Initiative Rondha Lam.
Ram in his letter to Singh pointed out that according to Section 120 of the Representation of the People Act, the election agent of each group of candidates has to forward to the Chief Election Officer a return in Form 26 of the Act.
He pointed out that this return was due no later than 35 days following the declaration of the result which would have been September 7th. Ram also pointed out that in the absence of an authorised excuse the failure to comply “constitutes an illegal practice”.
Section 124 however grants clemency to those who failed to submit based on any of a set of stated criteria including inadvertence or some other reasonable cause of a like nature as long as it “did not arise from any want of good faith”.
