Harmon maintains call for GECOM funding to prep for local gov’t polls
Leader of the Opposition Joseph Harmon has once again called for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to be allocated the funds that will allow it to begin preparing for local government polls next year.
“I take this opportunity to call on the PPP regime to begin preparations for the holding of Local Government Elections in 2021 and to allocate in the National Budget adequate funding to GECOM for the hosting of those elections,” Harmon said yesterday during a meeting with the Region 10 Regional Democratic Council (RDC) at Watooka House in Linden.
According to Harmon, it is also necessary that there be sufficient allocations for the urgent commencement of house-tohouse registration to create a new electoral register.
“The preparations for house-to-house registration can begin now and I call on
GECOM to put itself in a state of readiness to begin the process,” he added.
The politician stressed that polls are critical to democracy, while accusing the PPP/C of intending to wield authoritarian power through Central Government.
“The APNU+ AFC takes serious umbrage to statements made by Irfaan Ali to the effect that [local government elections], which [are] constitutionally due in 2021 will not be held until GECOM is fixed to his party’s satisfaction-not the people of Guyana’s satisfaction,” he told the councillors, while repeating that there will be serious resistance to any efforts to delay elections.
On Monday, Ali told reporters that the polls will not be held until the issues which are currently affecting GECOM are fixed.
“…What we have to do is to fix what is there first and we have to ensure that we have a system that is working and a system that people trust and a system that is professional and a system that operates in an unbiased manner so that the people of our country can contribute,” Ali said.
A similar sentiment was expressed by Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who told Stabroek News that the holding of the polls next year seems unlikely given the current elections petitions, a call by the opposition for a new voters’ list and police probes of officers of the electoral body.
“By law, local government elections are due next year, but from all indications it does not appear that GECOM will be in a state of readiness for several reasons…,” Nandlall had said.
Nandlall stated that not only is GECOM’s Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield before the court, but that his party has no confidence in him again performing such functions at the electoral body.
The polls are supposed to be held every three years. Under successive PPP/C governments, they were not held for some two decades. It was not until the APNU+AFC coalition took office in 2015, that polls were held in 2016 and then 2018.
In the absence of the elections, Harmon said, the PPP under its former Local Government Ministers went around the country and dismissed elected Neighbourhood Democratic Councils and installed in their places hand- picked Interim Management Committees (IMCs). “These IMC’s answered directly to
Chinese engineering company Sinohydro, which is contracted to execute upgrading works along Sheriff Street and Mandela Avenue, has moved ahead with the trial application of asphalt between the Rupert Craig Highway and David Street, Kitty.
The trial application of asphalt was initially scheduled for over a week ago but was delayed due a mechanical problem with the road milling machine.
Ingram Edwards, Public Relations and Social Engagement Officer at Sinohydro, told Stabroek News that the company has been able to apply asphalt to a section of the road. The works, he said, will continue today and there will be restrictions on southward bound traffic.
He noted that after workers were able to get the machine working, they milled the stretch of the road and began applying asphalt yesterday.
At the conclusion of this exercise, Edwards related, stakeholders will visit and determine whether they are satisfied with the quality of work produced. Should they receive approval, he said, they will move forward with paving the road.
Motorists had previously been told that the section of Sheriff Street would be closed to south bound and that persons desirous of accessing the closed section would have to use the Conversation Tree Road or Church Road, Subryanville or another alternate route to proceed north on Sheriff Street.
Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill told Stabroek News that there are currently six sub-contractors, five of which are local, working along with Sinohydro to get the works done.
Edghill stated that the sub-contractors are executing different parts of the project. He pointed out that one contractor is working on the drainage, another on the construction of the bypass and bridge at La Penitence and others are working to re- lay new pipes and upgrade the Guyana Water Inc’s (GWI) distribution network. He explained that this is a necessary part of the project as they are aiming to prevent GWI from carrying out repairs and rehabilitation work after construction would have been completed.
The road upgrade project was halted due to COVID-19 precautionary measures in April and
recommenced in September after COVID-19 measures were implemented.
In April, Stabroek News reported that sub-contractors, who were awarded contracts for the construction of the drains and sidewalks along Sheriff Street, were trying to maximise their output given the prevailing good weather conditions and the reduction in traffic following the implementation of the COVID19 restrictions.
The Sheriff Street to Mandela Avenue aspect of the works is expected to result in an upgraded twolane road, while Mandela Avenue, from the Cultural Centre, to the intersection with Hunter Street, and the beginning of the East Bank
Highway will be upgraded to a four-lane road. The two- year project also encompasses lane and shoulder improvements, placement of sidewalks and paved shoulders, traffic signals, streetlights, drainage upgrade works, a pedestrian overhead walkway, culverts, bridges and a roundabout. The fourlane section will also feature a dividing median.
The project was handed over to the company early in 2018 after the contract was awarded and work commenced in the latter part of the year. The contract is pegged at US$31.03 million and is being financed by the Inter- American Development Bank.