REFERENCE is hereby made to comments attributed to Mr. Leon Walcott, President of the Guyana Council of Organisations for Persons with Disabilities (sic), which appeared in the June 4, 2011 edition of the Guyana Chronicle. I will not dwell on the perplexing statement that the Guyana Council of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities (GCOPD) will make use of the Claims and Objections (C&O) period to get differently-abled persons to register and vote. If this were indeed necessary, then the GCOPD could have used the weeks which have elapsed during the current (2011) Claims and Objections (C&O) exercise to get differently-abled persons to register; or prior to that, the Council could have exploited the Continuous Registration exercise last year (2010); or, prior to that, it could have ensured that advantage was taken to register GCOPD members during the C&O process (2009/2010) in preparation for Local Government Elections; or, prior to that,  Mr. Walcott could have   utilized GECOM’s lengthy House-to-House  Registration undertaking in 2008.
In passing, I should mention that “knowing” all that he has given himself liberty to express, it should be asked what did Mr. Walcott do during the periods mentioned above? One might argue that Mr. Walcott singularly failed to represent his constituency.
Let it be documented that every member of the GCOPD would have been registered during the 2008 House-to-House (not office-based) Registration exercise, once he/she was in possession of the relevant source documents. No differently-abled person would have been left out. The scrutineers of the political parties, to say nothing of GECOM staff, would not have allowed anyone to remain unregistered. To suggest that “70% of persons with disabilities (sic) have never been registered” is sheer nonsense with no figures to back up such a statement. Persons did not have to go to an office to be registered during the House-to-House Registration; we visited their homes. In fact, during any office-based national registration exercise, any person with a disability (which could create a difficulty for him/her to reach the office) would be registered at home within our “SHUT IN” programme. Simply put, the differently-abled person intimates the problem to the relevant staff, and we arrive at his/her doorstep with political parties scrutineers.
Mr. Walcott further posited that many differently-abled persons, though registered, never voted. I cannot speak for the political parties, but I know for a fact that those serious people, who desire votes to propel themselves into public office, do indeed make it a point of duty to ensure that their supporters, differently-abled or not, get to polling stations.
The unkindest cut of all was Mr. Walcott’s claim that “………persons with disabilities who were registered but have not been able to vote because they did not have the physical support to get to the polling stations or were not assisted to cast their ballots because of un-cooperative officers”. Mr. Walcott, in his effort to give sop to the donors, and in his attempt to justify the US $18,000 donation, is being downright disingenuous.

Let me make the following pellucidly clear:

(i) The Commission, the leaders of the Secretariat and their staff display an unmitigated focus and action where assistance to the differently-abled is concerned.

(ii) No Presiding Officer, Deputy Presiding Officer, Polling Day Clerk or Party Scrutineer would allow differently-abled persons, visibly pregnant women, senior citizens, etc to suffer in a queue. Consistently, our Training Programmes for Polling Day Staff (e.g. the one today – 11-06-2011) emphasize and dictate the procedures relative to assistance to differently-abled persons very comprehensively.

(iii) Generally, Guyanese are a kind, magnanimous and caring people. It is highly unlikely that a person with a disability would not be immediately promoted to the front of the line. However, this would, in all probability, not be necessary because it is standard operating practice to have a special clerk on the look-out for disabled persons on Polling Day. In addition, GECOM employs a Polling Day Usher whose job, inter alia, is to facilitate differently abled persons as they arrive at the Polling Station Cluster.

(iv) The Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03, Section 30 (1) (c) allows those electors who are unable, or likely to be unable, by reason either of blindness or any other physical incapacity, to go in person to the polling place .…. to vote by proxy at an election.

(v) All Monitors of and Observers (local and foreign) at the 2006 Elections were specifically high in praise of GECOM’s superlative and exemplary treatment of persons with disabilities.

Mr. Walcott is reported to have said: “We will have an elections officer at the workshop” (sic). This borders on arrogance! Mr. Walcott never invited GECOM to any Workshop. How dare he, with such definitiveness, pronounce on the activities of GECOM officers?

Mr. Leon Walcott had telephoned Mr. Vishnu Persaud, GECOM’s Public Relations Officer, requesting that GECOM provide his (Mr. Walcott’s) organization with civic and voter education materials to be disseminated among the Council’s membership across Guyana. Mr. Persaud gave Mr. Walcott the assurance that his request was very much in line with GECOM’s responsibilities and that he (Mr. Persaud) would personally ensure that the request is treated with dispatch.
Accordingly, Mr. Persaud promised Mr. Walcott comprehensive literature outlining the entire electoral process, including the rights and civil responsibilities of electors. Mr. Persaud also promised Mr. Walcott that audio messages would be provided to him with respect to those persons among his organization with impaired sight.
Mr. Persaud suggested that, since provision of the information requested carries a cost, Mr. Walcott ought to formalise the request by writing the Chairman of GECOM. Subsequently, Mr. Walcott wrote the Chairman a letter, dated May 24, 2011, documenting his request. The letter was copied to Mr. V. Persaud. Immediately upon receipt of the letter, Mr. Persaud telephoned Mr. Walcott to inform that, he (Mr. Persaud) was engaged in putting the information together and that this would take some time. Meanwhile, Mr. Persaud gave an associate of Mr. Walcott (a young lady who brought the letter) a copy of relevant information which is published in the 2011 GT&T Telephone Directory (pages 150-158) for initial use.
Mr. Editor, please advise Mr. Walcott that so far his modus operandi is not conducive to “moving forward in collaboration with GECOM”, as he proclaims.
Of course, we are always supportive of any organization,the genuine and proven activities of which, are in consonance with GECOM’s own thrusts.