…as GECOM wraps up training

TRAINING for enumerators and other staff for the impending house-to-house registration has officially been completed and the registration process is expected commence mid-June, 2019.

This was revealed by members of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Tuesday following the commission’s statutory meeting. At the meeting, the GECOM Secretariat presented an updated report on preparation works towards generating a new list of registrants for the upcoming General and Regional Elections. “The report from the secretariat today, gave a clear indication of where they were in the process of preparing for house-to-house registration. The training is now complete so that the staff could be properly available,” Commissioner Charles Corbin said.

He added that there were indications of a projected delay following procurement challenges but added that the secretariat is “fully geared to move in accordance with the arrangement which they have in place”. GECOM Public Relations Officer (PRO), Yolanda Ward, later told the Guyana Chronicle that while the commission had plans for a June 1, 2019 commencement, this has been pushed back to mid-June.

“We’ve completed the training aspect so basically what we’re doing right now is placing staff, those persons who would have been successful in the evaluation, into their respective teams,” Ward said. Those trained are expected to amount to some 1,800 teams and over 4,000 employees for the registration period. Already, some 200 cluster offices country-wide have been identified which will serve as meeting bases for the verification of information gathered.

“In each division and sub-division, there will be cluster offices that will be run by Assistant Registration Officers (AROs). So, as fast as the enumerators go out in the field and they conduct transactions and complete forms and registration, they will return to the cluster offices and that transaction will be verified by the ARO before it goes to the Registration Officer,” she explained.

The majority of these cluster officers will be located at schools. Meanwhile, weeks ago, the commission rolled out its voters’ education campaign on television, radio and in print. It is set to commence the community aspect of this campaign within the next two weeks. It will provide citizens with on-the-ground information on how they can get themselves and their documents ready to be registered to vote in the coming elections.