Coalition’s dead voter claim… Family says it never approved access to death certificate

“We were so disturbed when we saw it because we wanted to know how they got a copy of a death certificate for someone who they are not related to.” Those were the sentiments expressed by the grand-daughter of Chitnandani Ramdass, the woman who died on june 6, 2015 that the APNU+AFC Coalition claimed voted at the march 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. The claim was made by APNU+AFC counting agent, Ganesh Mahipaul, in a Guyana Chronicle article complete with an image of a copy of the woman’s death certificate as ‘evidence’ of her voting at the march 2 polls. The woman’s granddaughter told this publication that family members were shocked when they saw the copy of the death certificate in the media because they did not issue permission to the party to obtain a copy at no time. That copy was obtained on january 30, 2020 while the original death certificate was issued to the family on september 6, 2017. The allegation that someone voted using her dead grandmother’s name, according to the granddaughter, would not be possible. “So you mean to tell me that they had agents there and saw somebody voting for a dead person and you sat down there on elections day and you didn’t object? What sense does that make?” Coalition Executive, Amna Ally, disclosed that the party is in possession of “countless” death certificates. She was questioned as to how these sensitive records were accessed. She told the media that that they can be easily purchased at the Guyana

Registry Office (GRO). Ally said too “Anybody can access a death certificate…I think what you have to do is to pay about $300 and you can access a death certificate.” A provision in the law under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act also points to this. That law says “Everyone shall be entitled, on payment of the fees prescribed by the Minister by order, to search the indices between the hours of ten o’ clock in the morning and four o’clock in the afternoon of every day except on public holidays and saturdays, and to have extracted there from a sealed certificate of birth in Form 4 or a sealed certificate of death in Form 5, as the case may be.”

(Kaieteur News)