… ID cards produced from recent Claims and Objections Exercise being distributed
THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has taken the unanimous decision to decommission all national identification cards that were issued before October, 2009. This decision was taken at the 335th Statutory Meeting of the Commission on Tuesday, August 16, 2011.
The effective date of the decommissioning will be November 1, 2011. Consequently, all ID cards issued before October, 2009, will not be valid for electoral purposes at General and Regional, and Local Government Elections. This is according to a release issued by GECOM yesterday.

In view of this decision, ID cards (“red” and “green”) that were issued before October, 2009, will not be accepted as a means of identification for voting at the upcoming elections. These cards will have no relationship with the Official List of Electors (OLE) to be produced for the General and Regional Elections – 2011

GECOM reiterates that, since 2007, it has been advising that citizens needed to be registered during the 2008 House-to-House Registration exercise, and during the subsequent Continuous Registration and Claims and Objections exercises. Further, GECOM had repeatedly published notices via the print and electronic media, informing the public of this decommissioning eventuality, while emphasising that it is absolutely urgent for persons who have not collected their new ID cards as yet to do so immediately.

However, GECOM  said that it is still in possession of approximately 30,000 new ID cards for persons registered during the 2008 House-to-House Registration exercise, during the Claims and Objections exercise for Local Government Elections (January-February, 2010), and during the 2nd Cycle of Continuous Registration (September-December, 2010). 

On a related matter, GECOM has commenced the distribution of ID cards produced for persons who were registered during both phases of the recent Claims and Objections exercise. 

National identification cards can be collected from the respective GECOM permanent Registration Offices across Guyana on Mondays to Fridays during normal working hours.