PLEASE permit me space in your newspaper to air my views on the Gocool Boodhoo issue.Mr. Boodhoo, was never given due process – not even a hearing. Now that all the ‘hot air’ on the ‘Boodhoo matter’ has been cooled down, I hope cooler heads will be prepared to listen to what exactly occurred. Sometime in February 2013, the Chairman (of GECOM Dr Steve Surujbally) informed the commission at a statutory meeting that the Chief Elections Officer(CEO) (Mr Boodhoo) had written, signalling his intention to continue working as the CEO at the Guyana Elections Commission and that we would have to discuss this later.

There was no dissenting voice, not even from (Vincent) Alexander, nothing about the letter being two weeks late, then.

We all agreed that there should be an appraisal and that Boodhoo must be given a hearing. The chairman’s first problem was with the appraisal form which GECOM had been using all the previous years to assess its senior managers and which the chairman suddenly ‘woke up’ and felt that, that appraisal form was no longer suitable to assess Mr Boodhoo and that he would prepare another.
So, Round #1 was to arrive at a suitable form, this took a couple of weeks and much wrangling and no agreement was reached. So we decided to go back to the original appraisal form.
Round #2 – Who must prepare Mr Boodhoo’s appraisal? – The chairman said not him, as Mr Boodhoo was serving the entire commission. But the commission felt otherwise, because Mr Boodhoo was more closely relating to him on various GECOM’s daily tasks, and that everything that was supposed to be brought to the commission, passed through the CEO’s hands to the chairman then to the commission. Also, the CEO Boodhoo reported more often to the chairman than to the commission;it was believed that he must do the appraisals, but like Pontius Pilate, he said, “not I” and he washed his hands of that.
If there was any evidence against Mr Boodhoo’s good work or any evidence of malpractice or corruption, etc., I do believe there would have been no hesitation to do the appraisals, but because they have none, “No one wanted to Bell the Cat”, especially the chairman for all his bragging.
By this time, March 2013 was coming to an end and Mr Boodhoo was told to take his remaining leave which incidentally was much more than the number of days that remained before his contract expired. We spent quite some time discussing whether to pay for the remaining days of his leave and despite the fact that we eventually agreed to pay I do not believe that he has been paid as yet, at least not by the last meeting of 2013-08-13.
The month of April, 2013, again nothing was done about Boodhoo’s contract renewal as the chairman and most commissioners were involved with observer missions mainly in South America.
Then, in May it was agreed for us, commissioners, to write our reasons as to why Boodhoo’s contract should be renewed or not. Everyone agreed except commissioner Sandra Jones who had written the commission, stating that the CEO’s position is now vacant and we must now advertise and if Boodhoo wants he can re-apply. How ingenious! We did not agree to that as the chairman said he wanted transparency – (whatever that means!) and still there was no discussion on the merits or demerits of having Mr Boodhoo back or not, despite the fact that some of us did write our opinions but were not allowed to read same.
Eventually, Mr Boodhoo’s writ arrived stating that as per his contract, we must use the yearly appraisals that the commission was supposed to do and never did, to appraise him and no other. The commission did no yearly appraisal because there was no need to do so as his work was excellent.
Writs were finally not allowed by the judge, then the chairman at the next meeting in July called for a vote, i.e., for or against the renewing of Mr Boodhoo’s contract – can you imagine this! Just like that – no discussion, no hearing given to Mr Boodhoo – nothing – just vote.
So it was three for and three against and the chairman cast his vote against him and Mr Boodhoo was gone Without due process being done; without giving him a hearing as was agreed and No appraisal was ever done as per his contract agreement.
I must emphasise that from February 2013 – July 2013 no discussion took place at any statutory meeting of the commission on the work done by Mr Boodhoo. Also, no appraisal was ever done. No accusation was thrown about how Boodhoo did his work. Not even the ‘Great Mistake’ that Commissioner Alexander kept harping about all the time in the press and not at any meeting, because he knew that all of us including the chairman had agreed it was a mistake at that time in December, 2011. Also, in his file there is no warning letter of any indiscretion or malpractice.
Therefore, I believe the reason why the chairman did not allow due process for Mr Boodhoo, was because he knew all his accusations etc, are just that – accusations – he cannot to this day when asked, produce any evidence of wrongdoing against Mr Boodhoo. All he has are anecdotes, innuendoes and conjecture,nothing else.Let him, the chairman, and all the others who were supporting him produce what evidence they have against Boodhoo that would have warranted a refusal to renew his contract.
The hurtful part of this was that Mr Boodhoo did give yeoman service to GECOM – ran three elections that everyone including foreign observers declared Free and Fair – and the lists, i.e., the Official List of Electors(OLE) was done above board.
A few years back, because of the excellent work being done at GECOM, the chairman was all praises for Mr Boodhoo and his staff, so much so, that he was and is making desperate efforts to seek ISO certification in the electoral field. Now after all his hard and dedicated service to GECOM, for Mr Boodhoo to be treated in this manner, is a shame and disgrace to the chairman, and the commissioners.