With the agenda for a planned meeting today still not known, the team led by former Chairman of the Guyana Public Service Co-operative Credit Union (GPSCCU) Trevor Benn is urging members to boycott it.
“We are asking our members not to show up at the meeting (today) because of the breaches. And we are confident that based on the communication from the judge, to the lawyers associated with this case, that the judge is fully aware of the breaches and he is prepared to act on them at the appropriate time,” Benn stated, during a virtual press conference he and his team held yesterday.
To keep the peace and also not to give anyone cause or reason to say that the meeting was disrupted or had a quorum, Benn told members to stay away.
Last month, High Court Judge Navindra Singh declared that members of the GPSCCU were entitled to demand a special general meeting and refuted arguments of the union’s management committee that the request constituted a dispute. The case involved three members of the GPSCCU who had petitioned the Court for declarations that Benn and Patrick Mentore were the credit union’s duly elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman, and that a Special General Meeting of Members which had originally been scheduled for June 25th, 2022 be allowed to be held.
With time running out, the Interim Management Committee of the GPSCCU this month gave notice that it will convene a special general meeting on October 24th. But while the announcement gave the notice of the meeting, it did not provide an agenda or state if elections would be held.
“Pursuant to the Co-operatives Societies Act, Cap 88:01, Regulation 16, Notice is hereby given that a Special General Meeting of Members of the Guyana Public Service Co-operative Credit Union Ltd… will be held on Monday 24th October 2022, in the auditorium of the new Central High School, Princes Street, Georgetown, Guyana at 8:00hrs,” the notice signed by Chairperson of the Management Committee, Karen Vansluytman-Corbin stated.
It also stated that Vansluytman-Corbin would be presiding over the meeting.
Rights
And although the notice said 8 am, members were this week told that they have to register to attend the meeting between 7 am and 9 am today.
It caused members of the GPSCCU to express concern that its committee of management will not comply with the recent court order.
The applicants wrote a letter to the acting chairwoman Van Sluytman-Corbin emphasizing the court ruling and noting that the notice must reflect that of the Annual General Meeting in that it must be published in a national newspaper and must include the agenda.
“It has been two weeks since the honourable justice Navindra Singh delivered his judgement and less than two weeks to the day of the SGM as contemplated by the order of the court,” the applicants stated in the letter.
They made a request that details of the plans and arrangements be put in place pursuant to the court order and that the committee confirm that the place determined as the venue for the SGM is approved. The applicants also requested that all in-person and online arrangements be put in place for the SGM.
The letter was read at a press conference last week, where GPSCCU member John Anderson stated, “members are now concerned that their rights to a right to a free, fair and transparent process may not be realized.” He noted that this is evident from the chairwoman’s refusal of the letter from the applicants the first two times it was presented.
Free, fair and transparent
Benn yesterday said that while he is confident of a victory should there be elections, he and his team cannot associate themselves with a process that flouts the law.
“There are a number of other issues they have to address before that meeting can comply with the Judge’s order. As it is, what they are about to embark upon does not comply with the Judge’s order,” he posited.
“So even if they call it a special general meeting, and even if they went ahead and do what they had to do, it would not meet the requirements of the judge and we are confident that the judge will not allow that to stand…we have to satisfy ourselves and our members that the system is in place that allows for free, fair and transparent elections,” he added.
Turning to the two-hour `in-person’ registration process that is being put into place, Benn said that it was unfair and an online portal opened only this weekend is also not in line with the Court ruling.
He said that the Judge ruled that the Special General Meeting must mirror the one held last year and there are a number of things that differ. One important aspect he said was that the last meeting allowed for a smooth online participation process and that a Trinidad tech firm was contracted for the online portal.
This year, Benn is complaining that an unknown company has been forced on members and since it was only made known to them on Saturday they also do not know the log in credentials.
“Our members are not able to travel from all of the regions to come to town in one location. Can you appreciate 5000 persons showing up at the Central High School tomorrow morning to be registered in two hours? Can you appreciate the cost associated with that? They are insisting that members leave their homes to get to Georgetown to register. I see it as an impossibility for them to register and I mean even if half [of the total number of members turn up]. It can’t happen. There is no way we can register , even 2000 people in that timeframe with an election so highly contested“, he emphasized.
And with registration of large numbers being of concern, members still do not know the total number of legitimate members.
“We do not know how many members are there. We are hearing there are 24,000 members, that there are 28,000 [members], there are 20,000, and 23, 0000… When I sat as chair, we did a comprehensive review of the system and there is no more than 17,000 active members. A great deal of the numbers they are calling are either dead or inactive,” Benn said.
He said that even if the number has been reduced from when he was Chairman, it would be impossible to have those persons registered in the timeframe set. “Even if it is 15,000 and all 15,000 want to register, can you imagine what that means?
“And how do you register them to vote? What is the process for nomination? We don’t have any information,” he added.
