PPP/C paid US lobbyist US$304,000 for elections-related work
While the political parties which contested the March General and Regional Elections (GRE) have still not submitted their declaration of expenses to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) as required by law, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has spent in excess of $63.4 million on a US lobbyist while APNU+AFC spent at least $10.5 million on its own American lobbyist.
Information compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics based on reports made available by the US Department of Justice show that the now governing party paid US lobbying firm, Mercury Public Affairs US$253,557 in 2019. For 2020 the party spent US$49 965 before the termination of the contract in July 2020, just shortly before it took office. In total the political party has spent US$303,522 for the services provided by Mercury.
The main opposition meanwhile has expended $50,000 to JJ&B LLC for similar lobbying.
Stabroek News Columnist Indranie Deolall highlighted the expenditure in her column in Friday’s edition.
General Secretary of the PPP Bharrat Jagdeo had heaped praise on the work that Mercury had done for his party and stated that the effort was being funded by “donations”.
In April 2019 he told reporters that he believed Mercury would get the message of free and fair elections out to Washington.
“It is a universal value and we believe with their help we can counter the lies… We are doing this for Guyana. We are paying money from the PPP fund for Guyana,” he said.
He added that the party had been collecting funds to help with elections campaigning, to pay the firm and to deal with legal expenses.
“The party has to pay for the legal fees for lawyers on the no confidence motion.
The party has to pay for the public affairs firm, etc. That is the party’s responsibility,” he stressed while adding that, “Everything comes from donations.” He indicated that the party had set up a GoFundMe page as well.
There has however been no comment since then as to how much was expended on the campaign pre March 2, the recount process or the numerous legal cases which ensued.
Stabroek News has over the last month reached out to PPP/C party agent Zulfikar Mustapha on several occasions for comment on the party’s compliance with regulations government campaign expenses but have been unable to make contact. Calls to APNU+ AFC agent Joseph Harmon on the same issue have also gone unanswered.
Both parties are currently in violation of the Representation of the People Act which directs that the election agent of each party/group of candidates must forward to the Chief Election Officer a declaration of their party’s expenses by 35 days following the declaration of the result of the national/regional elections.
Section 124 of the Act 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”. There is however no indication that any of the 11 parties which contested the March 2 elections have made an attempt to comply.