BUSINESSMAN Mr. Jonas Sampson, well-known as Ken Sampson, who was a member of the reconstituted commission which presided over the historic 1992 general elections, has died.

Mr. Jonas (Ken) Sampson

His death was announced Tuesday and his son, Rawle said he suffered severe back problems that made him immobile for a period before he succumbed.

One of the Guyanese entrepreneurs who remigrated after spending decades in the United States, Sampson had, in 1970, established a prominent engineering company, KENSACO, that served the bauxite industry well at Mackenzie, Linden.

He was managing that enterprise when then President Desmond Hoyte agreed to name a new Elections Commission, in 1991 June, after being persuaded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to make major changes in preparations for the balloting that ushered in the existing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government.

The other members of that Commission which was chaired by Mr. Rudy Collins, were the late Mr. Neville Bissember and Mr. Abel Felix, for the People’s National Congress (PNC) and Mr. Clement Rohee, Mr. Miles Fitzpatrick and Dr Bud Mangal, nominees of the Dr Cheddi Jagan led Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD), a political alliance formed for the voting.

For Sampson, 79, there will be a viewing of the body today, at Merriman’s Funeral Home, Lime and Bent Streets, Georgetown, before it is flown back to the U.S., where he has another home, for the last rites.