…Region Nine residents tie PPP to alleged racket

THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Ministry of Citizenship have both launched an investigation into allegations of fake birth certificates being in the hands of scores of residents of Region Nine, as well as allegations of non-nationals being in possession of Identification Cards, without the relevant source documents.

This was relayed to the Guyana Chronicle by Public Relations Officer of the GECOM, Yolanda Warde, and Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, on Friday. Warde said that GECOM’s operation team has begun looking into the matter while Felix said the circumstances under which the documents were obtained are being investigated.

These discoveries were made by GECOM scrutineers during the ongoing house-to-house registration. In addition, the scrutineers also unearthed several non-nationals in possession of National Identification Cards, but with no source documents to determine how these documents were legally obtained. When those in possession of these documents were asked where they got them, fingers were pointed to the Region Nine branch of the Peoples Progressive Party.

Meanwhile, in a statement the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) called on Guyanese not to be misled by the article. The party said the “false accusation is demonstrative of the government’s increasing desperation since the successful passage of the December 21, 2018, no-confidence motion (NCM).” The PPP, which had misused the Guyana Chronicle and allowed an editorial demonising Afro-Guyanese youths to be published complained that the state newspaper has been usurped as the mouthpiece of the dominant party in the coalition, the People’s National Congress (PNC), which will spare no effort to wantonly spread misinformation to deliberately mislead and to create a sense of uneasiness as election looms.

EXTREMELY CONCERNED

Government’s Chief Whip and Minister of Social Protection, Amna Ally said that she is extremely concerned about the issue, more so about the allegations made by those in receipt of the documents, which is, that they were processed by Region Nine’s Freedom House. “That is the kind of racket that they run and all they want to do is corrupt the whole country,” she said. The Chief Whip called those responsible to “desist from doing that kind of thing and allow the country to be governed in a peaceful and democratic way.”

Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Sydney Allicock said that the allegations are not new, since similar ones were rumored during the Local Government Election period. There however, was no evidence at the time and since nothing substantial was seen, an investigation was not launched. Officials in Region Nine related to this newspaper non-residents of Lethem were listed as residents and were able to vote in the elections, which allowed the PPP to garner six seats, while the APNU garnered four.

Now that several scrutineers have come forward and documents have now surfaced, he said, the rumours are now proven to be true. “We are getting closer to the truth, a number of persons were saying these documents were always there and now that they have found it, it is something that needs to be investigated.” Allicock argued that it was on this basis, that house-to-house registration needed to be conducted to get a better picture of the illegalities that were always believed to be out there and in other regions as well.

Relative to the allegations that the documents were facilitated by Freedom House, the Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Minister, said that he does not doubt its trueness. “It was the very controllers of Freedom House, particularly at the central level, that have been against the holding of H2H registration. They aggressively expressed this through street protests and media conferences and pursued its discontinuation in the courts,” Allicock said.

Weeks ago, Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire, ruled that the ongoing house-to-house registration embarked upon by GECOM, is legal. In her ruling, she explained the Constitution provides for the conduct of H2H registration as a form of verification. As such, she ruled that the June 11 Order published in the Official Gazette by the then Chairman, GECOM was in compliance with established laws. However GECOM has shortened the timeframe for the exercise, but will merge the data gathered thus far with those from the National Register of Registrants.

CLEAR FOR ALL TO SEE
Member of Parliament, Mervyn Williams, stressed that the allegations of the fake birth certificates make it very clear why the opposition fought so hard to stop H2H. “I believe if it wasn’t clear before why they were up against registration, it is now clear for everyone to see that they were protecting themselves from being identified with various mal practices with registration of persons…it shows that they were afraid of house-to-house registration and they wanted to intimidate GECOM, they expended a lot of resources in doing that, ” he reasoned. Williams also indicated that these illegalities can be found in other regions as well and that it proves that the government was not wrong to support H2H.

While GECOM’s Chairman, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, decided to bring the process to an end, which will facilitate the start of an extensive claims and objection period, Williams believes the latter will serve as the perfect tool to allow these issues to be dealt with. Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) member and political scientist, Dr David Hinds believes that now is the time for international observers to step in and make their presence known. With these damning revelations, Hinds said that the government needs to be proactive in engaging all stakeholders and the international community as an avenue for free and fair elections as well and not only look to H2H as the only means of acquiring a credible list.

The PPP, he said, has a track record of being involved in unsavoury activities to win elections at all cost and the alleged provision of fake documents is just another avenue that has surfaced. He alluded to the 2011 saga where Mr. Gocool Boodooo, the Chief Election Officer, was accused of colluding with the PPP to have the elections rigged as well as the 2015 case of fake statements of poll being discovered at GECOM. “So I am not surprised to hear of that development, I have always felt the opposition is bent on winning the election at all cost and getting involved in unsavory activities. We are now seeing why the PPP were trying to rush elections because they had a mechanism to rig the elections,” he argued.

THOROUGH CLAIMS AND OBJECTIONS
Hinds opined that for claims and objections to completely solve this issue, it needs to be done thoroughly and adequate time has to be allocated for it to be conducted. “It should be a timely process and that means it cannot be done in two or three weeks, we have to ensure the entire mechanism they are using to rig the elections is thoroughly examined,” the politician argued.

The APNU scrutineers brought the fake documents to the Coalition’s Region Nine office and Wendella Franklin, PNCR Chairperson Region Nine, related that many of them were unearthed in the North Rupununi district, in the villages of Annai and Rupertee. They were sent to Georgetown for further verification.

The scrutineers observed birth certificates with no official signature, without a birth certificate number and without the official seal. They also discovered tampered birth certificates, with incorrect names and other information that were corrected manually.

Persons in possession of such documents allegedly related that they were able to obtain their ID Cards with the tampered documents, many years ago. “I think this whole birth certificate issue is a real sad situation in the region, because I know a lot of people know that Freedom House has been giving out birth certificates for years. They were really in control of things,” Franklin said.

In fact, she also alleged that a former high-ranking PPP member in Region Nine visited the coalition office in search of a birth certificate. Franklin said when she questioned him about the allegations brought before her, he did not deny them, but said that of late, there seems to be a blockage in whatever system of processing was used. Franklin said she made it clear that the application being done at the ‘Coalition’ office requires the legal procedure and a waiting time is attached.

Corroborating Franklin’s story was Terrence Boston, a Justice of Peace (JP) who operates in Region Nine. When contacted, the JP said that many persons came to transact business at his office with fake birth certificates, and also alleged that they sourced the document from Freedom House.

Boston related that one woman approached him with a fake birth certificate, and after realising he was suspicious, she said to him, “Mr. Boston, I know this is a fake birth certificate. Sorry about it.” The young lady then reportedly confessed that her mother obtained the document for her from Freedom House in Lethem.

Boston said, “Well across the region I came across birth certificates that don’t have the stamp of the Registrar General’s Office. We try to question them, and they say they got help from Freedom House.” The JP also related that he’s seen many persons who don’t have birth certificates but yet are in possession of ID Cards, even though they are not naturalised Guyanese either. Boston said this situation is prevalent in Region Nine, being it is so close to the Brazilian border.

In addition to the fake documents, allegations have also surfaced about bus-loads of non-nationals being transported into the township and other communities and presenting ID cards at homes they are not known to be resident of. “Strange faces at various homes are claiming to reside there, and these claims are supported by other residents who are known occupants.” One scrutineer related that at one home, nine persons with ID cards presented themselves to be registered, but each of them had different surnames.