THERE has been no government directive to stop the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from placing its voter education and related programmes in newspapers and other traditional media, President Bharrat Jagdeo reiterated yesterday. He backed up the clear statements on the issue by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, earlier in the week that the directive to GECOM on placing advertisements on the government e-procure website was related to procurement. 
“We are clear…and his (Luncheon’s) directives were clear — that for anything to do with voter education, notification of people about polling stations and registration centres, these issues were not covered by the directives”, Mr. Jagdeo said.
“…there is no issue about GECOM being unable to reach the public. We hope not just the newspapers but TV and radio and any media possible to reach people,” he told a press conference at the Office of the President complex in Georgetown.
“I have seen Kaieteur News saying that Luncheon called the GECOM commissioners wicked. Luncheon said it is a wicked attempt to distort what he said. It is not true. Luncheon did not call the commissioners wicked”, the President said.
He added that he could understand that media houses have been aggrieved by the decision of the government to advertise on the e-procure website.
“I could understand self-interest. What I can’t understand is distortion,” he declared.
He added: “this big storm in a tea cup about what Luncheon said clearly is designed for political purposes.”
The President said GECOM will be given all the resources it needs to hold general elections next year but “in using those resources they have to comply with this country’s procurement laws.”
He explained that for the 2006 elections, the government “turned a blind eye” to a lot of things because of the limited time available for holding those polls.
“There was a sense of urgency, but we have time now…we have time where you can go through all the processes,” he said.
The President insisted that the commission must use mandated tender procedures to procure material goods and services.
“It is public money. It is not GECOM’s money…it is not owned by the commissioners…they have to ensure that in using public money they follow a recommended and approved procedure”, he stated.
Mr. Jagdeo explained that many people are still to be paid by GECOM after they provided goods and services because these were supplied without any tender.
“Not in the newspapers, not on the internet, not on radio, not on TV, but without any tender whatsoever, they awarded $100 million worth of contracts for materials that they bought. This is not the accepted way. If they wanted to do that, all they needed to do was seek a waiver of the tender board procedures,” he said.
Asked whether the Auditor General could be invited to investigate GECOM, the President said the government has a problem with the commission in the procurement matter.
“I don’t want to disparage the entire GECOM…I would not say that GECOM is abusing the finances more than any other agency of the government. But we have a particular case where significant sums of money are held up for the suppliers because GECOM did not follow the process.
“And I don’t want to extrapolate from that to the entire operations of GECOM. If those commissioners know anything, that GECOM or anyone in GECOM is misappropriating money, they have a duty to address it when they meet,” he said.
The President said that while the government will not interfere in the decisions of GECOM, it will examine the way that GECOM spends taxpayers’ money.