–NPTAB Head says

CHAIRMAN of National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) Berkley Wickham has assured that the procurement issues that previously hindered the acquisition of key equipment for house-to-house registration have been rectified.

On June 4, 2019, Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Commissioner Charles Corbin relayed that the due to a previous “bottleneck”, enumerators were without the materials needed to commence registration on June 1, 2019 as planned.

However, on Monday, Wickham told the newspaper that the issue creating the setback was administrative and the award for the procurement of the materials has now been delivered. “The issue that was reported on last week has been resolved,” Wickham stated.
“[The issues were] administrative issues. They sent through some things and we needed more information and there was a back and forth until we got it right. We’ve issued the award to them and they are proceeding.”

Wickham said that NPTAB remains constantly in touch with the Commission in relation to other procurement matters and any delays experienced are unintentional. “I think it was a communication problem more than anything else. When any procurement entity sends things here it’s not only me, we have a Board. They have to be satisfied that everything is done right and follows the valid procedures,” he said.

Meanwhile, since the end of May, GECOM has reported that training for enumerators and other staff for the impending registration is completed.

Already, some 200 cluster offices country-wide have been identified which are to serve as meeting bases for the verification of information gathered by enumerators. At the same time, the Commission continues on its voters’ education campaign on television, radio and in print, encouraging individuals to get themselves and their documents ready to be registered.