In the courts:

APNU scrutineer mounts legal challenge to GECOM’s method of compiling voters’ list:

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Chief Scrutineer Carol Smith Joseph has moved to the High Court for an urgent hearing challenging the Guyana Elections Commission’s method used in compiling the voters’ list to be used in the March 13 Local Government Elections (LGE). The fixed date application, which was filed on Friday by her attorney Roysdale Forde, is seeking 21 declarations from the High Court. The Guyana Election Commission (GECOM), the Chief Election Officer, the Commissioner of Registration, and the Attorney General, are listed as respondents in the affidavit in support of the application and a further affidavit. Joseph is asking the court among other things to declare that GECOM acted unlawfully in not compiling the Preliminary List of Voters for Local Government Elections in accordance with the Local Authorities Act and the Chief Election Officer and/or the Commissioner of National Registration’s action of extracting a List of Electors pursuant to GECOM’s order was unlawfully prepared pursuant to Section 5 (6) of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act. The Chief Scrutineer is arguing that GECOM, in its preparation of the current voters list did not act in accordance with the law and the constitution mandate. Through this claim she is alleging that the registration of electors was not done as the act outlines. “The process employed by the Commission to prepare a Register of Voters for use at the next Local Government Elections has deprived the Electors and or voters of the opportunity to object to persons on the Register of Voters in the manner provided for in and contemplated by Local Authorities (Elections) Act Cap. 28:03,” one of the grounds on which she is arguing the case states.

IDPADA-G moves to court to recover $8M monthly subvention:

The International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) has moved to the courts over the Government’s refusal to pay its $8 million monthly subvention. The body is seeking an order mandamus directing the Minister of Finance to immediately pay to it, the sum that the Government has committed to. This move by the organisation comes months after the Government abruptly stopped the monthly payment forcing it among others things, to send staff members home and discontinue some of its activities. According to IDPADA-G’s attorney, Nigel Hughes, a fixed-date application has been filed and this allows for an expedited hearing of the case.

Billion-dollar battle over bridge damage rumbles on: Three employees of the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) have been sent on leave to enable a probe of how the ship that slammed into it last month departed without official notification. The attorney for the ship, the MV Tradewind Passion however told Stabroek News that an action on behalf of the government to stall the departure of the ship had failed in court and there had been no impediment to its departure. The departure is seen as a major embarrassment to the government, which has said that the ship caused $1 billion in damage. No money has yet been paid over but the court has accepted the lodging of a Letter of Undertaking to the value of $247.4 million. This would ostensibly be paid over if court action by the government against the ship owner succeeds. Kamal Ramkarran, the attorney for the ship’s owner, Canama Trading told Stabroek News that the vessel was finally released by the court on November 19 but that there was an appeal of that decision by the DHB and Andy Duke, the bridge employee who was injured in the collision. “The appeals and application for a stay were heard on 21 November in the Full Court and the Chief Justice [Roxane George] and Justice [Simone] Morris-Ramlall dismissed them as being completely without merit. And [they ordered] both the DHB and Andy Duke to pay $1,000,000 in costs to the vessel, each,” he added. However, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill has argued that there is still ongoing court litigation and that regulatory approvals for the vessel’s departure were not given. “There is ongoing litigation,” was all Edghill would say, noting that he did not want to transgress the sub judice rule. Nonetheless, he spoke on the probe which was initiated to ascertain how the vessel left its anchorage station and sailed off without requisite regulatory permissions. Three persons were sent home to facilitate the investigation, Edghill explained. They are the Traffic Manager who coordinates with the company and with all vessels passing in and out of the river; the Radio Operator who communicates with incoming and outgoing vessels to allow for smooth passage and the Shift Supervisor. “People who are directly responsible for the operations were sent home to allow for the investigations,” he said.