After judge discharges injunction
for all the years for which some question have been put before the court and therefore it is not an issue that the Guyana Public Service Union, as a trade union, has been delinquent in filing its returns or filing financial records to the Auditor General or the registrar of the trade union. Those pieces of information would have been available for public knowledge and rather than filing a court appeal, it would have been available for them to go have access to rather than filing a whole court action,” Forde added.
According to the GPSU release, the elections officer has been advised that he can proceed with elections and he, along with supporting staff, are “working assiduously to hold the Elections on Thursday 27th April, 2017.” It further stated that a circular has been issued to all members urging them to participate in the elections despite the inconvenience caused.
According to attorney Nigel Hughes, however, GPSU cannot proceed with the elections until it follow the procedures for holding them.
Hughes, who filed the challenge to the executive on behalf of Gaspar, related that the judge had discharged the injunction because he “did not want to hold up the running of the union” and with the knowledge that the body is still to present a defence to allegations raised against it.
The application against the GPSU executive members, filed approximately two weeks ago before Justice Priya SewnarineBeharry, accused the members of failing to properly manage the union in accordance with its rules and called for the council to be suspended until they could produce the Treasurer’s reports and/or the Auditor General’s reports for 2004 to 2017 and table them at this April’s Biennial Delegates’ Conference.
That matter is set to be heard on May 10.
Hughes noted that the documents presented to the AG were only a draft form, not yet audited, and his clients pointed out yesterday that none of the documents were signed by a Treasurer. Rather, they bore the signa- tures of the President, General Secretary and two trustees.
Furthermore, the members of the group protesting against GPSU President Patrick Yarde and the rest of his executive council raised concerns that the union would once again breach the rules outlined in the rule book, which states that the final list of nominees must be circulated “to all branches and the general membership by way or circulars and public notice(s) in one or all of the daily newspapers, at least two clear weeks before the date of elections”.
However, it should be noted that a circular of notification was published in the March 30th edition of the Stabroek News, with the list of nominees for the union’s executive council, and informed that in alignment with rule 30 e (II), nominees may withdraw their candidacy within seven days of the publication or else their names will appear on the ballot paper.