‘Make it do’
Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan
Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan

– Jordan says no additional funds for GECOM

FINANCE Minister Winston Jordan has shot down the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s request for additional finance to fund the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGE).

“We do not have a bottomless pit of money… everyone has money, but you cannot give any more than you get right now, so they have to cut and contrive… make it do,” said Jordan in an invited comment on Saturday.

GECOM said the $1.2B allocated for LGE is insufficient and soon it will be engaging the Ministry of Finance to boost this figure.

In a media release on Friday, GECOM said it has noted several reports in the press that the commission was allocated $2.9 billion dollars for LGE.

“Please be advised that GECOM‘s entire budget for 2018 is 2.9 billion dollars of which the sum for the holding of Local Government Elections is included,” GECOM stated.
The electoral body noted that $160M was allocated for capital works and items, and $1.6 billion for the normal operations of the commission. The remaining sum of $1.2 billion was allotted for the conduct of LGE in November 2018. The elections body said in 2016, $1.5 billion was expended for LGE
This means that the amount currently allocated is believed to be insufficient and GECOM will be engaging the Ministry of Finance to discuss supplemental provisions.

LAST THING WE WANT
“The last thing we want is GECOM coming and saying they want more money…. It is my heartfelt position that we have enough fiscal challenges, for instance, we must find the money to pay the second half of the severance among other things,” said Jordan.
He said the commission cannot be doing the same thing for many years and not see any improvement.

The minister believes that there are lots of expenditures which are ‘unnecessary’ and ‘wasteful’, noting that a lot of things have to be considered.
“They have done back-to-back elections where billions were given and it was used to acquire infrastructure and consumables, many of which are still in the storage and so on,” Jordan said.

GECOM needs to make better use of its money and recognise that the government does not have unlimited finance.

Jordan explained that every time an organisation requests money, the Finance Ministry has to cut another entity’s budget.

“We cannot keep doing that and we cannot be taxing people or borrowing more money than we are required to do under the budget,” he said.

FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE NEEDED
The minister believes that there has to be discipline when it comes to spending, especially since oil is on the horizon and everyone wants to get involved in debt and expenditure.
Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan on Wednesday announced that LGE will be held on November 12.

The National Assembly recently passed a bill which harmonises the period for elections for Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and municipalities.

It was stipulated that the LGE will be held between November 1 and December 7. Minister Bulkan said the early part of November was chosen, because government did not want the elections to clash with the reading of the 2019 National Budget, which is anticipated to be before the end of November.

LGE, regardless of any challenges, will not be postponed, chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired judge James Patterson had said in a report carried by the Guyana Chronicle.

GECOM will be moving ahead with the full implementation of all the required activities in keeping with the statutory timelines as enshrined in the Laws of Guyana.

 

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