Dear Editor:

It has been a long time that I have read so much bollocks. I am specifically referring to the utterance of the CEO of GECOM in the Guyana Press vis-a-vis the latest financial scandal in that organisation. In his words, he said that all his actions in supervising the procurement of items for the 2015 and 2016 elections at multiples of their real market value “got the blessings” of the Ramotar cabinet. This statement clearly illustrates that this guy is fully aware of the deed. But what I am observing is a deliberate act to now surreptitiously trying to pass the buck up the ladder.
My record on the Ramotar administration is well documented. For emphasis, I again summarize my thoughts on Donald Ramotar. Personally, Donald is a very nice fellow, but professionally he has proven himself to be an incompetent political viper, who was blinded to the fact that he had heavy limitations with respect to leadership and was nothing but a party apparatchik; a square peg in a round hole. The latest illustration of this limitation is the preponderance of dotish letters from the former President to the press when he should have retired himself from active politics soon after losing the elections. But even with all his weaknesses, Ramotar had ZERO control over the financial affairs of GECOM.
Therefore, this attempt by the CEO of a Constitutional body to cover his “behind” and to try to pass the buck in such a backhanded manner, up the chain to former President Ramotar, exposes that he is either permanently clueless as to the appropriate laws that cover the functionality of GECOM or is up to political mischief. On both count he should be fired. So is Mr. Lowenfield trying to tell this nation that as CEO of GECOM he is not directly responsible and directly accountable for every single act of financial skullduggery under his watch?
If as CEO he remains unaware of the fact that GECOM is directly in-charge on the National Budget (Consolidated Funds) for years now, then he should be fired forthwith for the abandonment of his intellect, because all he is doing is asking other people to do his job. Mr. Lowenfield is only accountable to the GECOM Secretariat, who is then accountable to the Parliament of Guyana. As a Constitutional Officer, he is not directly accountable to the President of Guyana and thus the President and by extension, the Cabinet is not responsible for his work and cannot influence his work. If they do, then that is Mr. Lowenfield’s fault, not the Cabinet’s, because the law is on his side.
The Constitution of Guyana empowers GECOM financially and neither the Minister of Finance nor the Cabinet of Guyana has executive authority over GECOM’s procurement process. Yes, there is the semantics of having the Cabinet announce at press conferences that they have no objection to GECOM spending X or Y dollars on X or Y project, but the selection of the preferred contractor is up to GECOM; period! If Cabinet refuses to grant a no objection on a GECOM approved contract, GECOM can ignore them; plain and simple. These were all measures to ring fence GECOM to establish it independence from the political parties.
This is not an opinion, it is written in the law. So this confounded nonsense from Mr. Lowenfield is a blatant untruth and bring every iota of his credibility into question. He will do very well to go back to the books and study the relevant laws of Guyana that covers the operations of GECOM. But if there was bad intent from the inception, studying the books will not help. If the intentions were always to use that institution to become a multi-millionaire on the sweat of the poor people, then financial abuse would have manifested itself anyway. This exposes that the GECOM Secretariat headed by Mr. Steve Surujbally has conducted themselves very poorly in causing the internal control systems to not be observed at all times. But that is another issue to be dealt with at another time.
So who really is Mr. Keith Lowenfield trying to fool? But I suspect because he is a former GDF Officer, he is expecting in today’s political environment, he will get a free pass on these acts of total and absolute dereliction of one’s duty. We shall see. The accusations of fraud are alive and telling at GECOM. Let us see what the Secretariat of GECOM under Mr. Steve Surujbally will do with these audit findings from the Auditor General of Guyana.
Regards
Sase Singh,