THE Guyana Elections Commission is gearing for voter education and other aspects for long-delayed Local Government elections now due by November this year, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon has said.

He told reporters Thursday that Cabinet at its weekly meeting Wednesday continued its focus on holding local government elections in 2009, a commitment shared by stakeholders.

Luncheon said Cabinet was briefed on GECOM’s preparations for the poll and the focus was on the commission’s work to finalise the voters list through claims and objections, the production and distribution of voter ID cards and other statutory procedures.

The commission is also finalizing the selection, appointment and training of registration staff and officials, the procurement of goods and services and voter education, he said.

Cabinet undertook to examine these matters in greater detail and pronounce on them later, he stated.

According to Luncheon, also Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Cabinet agreed on certain steps in the face of the likely unavoidable delay in the conclusion of the promised bilaterals between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Leader of the Opposition Robert Corbin on legislation from the task force on Local Government elections.

These steps include the tabling on Thursday of the Local Authority Elections Amendment Bill.

Cabinet also agreed that in lieu of the bilateral engagement with Mr. Corbin, who is recuperating after surgery in the United States, the bill should be immediately sent to the Parliamentary Select Committee for even wider parliamentary consideration.

In addition, Cabinet agreed on the subsequent tabling of the other bills affecting the local government system which include the Local Government Commission Bill, the Municipal and District Council Amendment Bill, the Fiscal Transfers Bill and the Local Government Bill.

Luncheon said it is likely that those bills will also go to the select committee and the government does not expect any delay in holding the elections by November.

“Parliament is unbelievably different to what it was in the times of the past and although there has been an occasion here or there when the matters are so profound that the select committee process is extended, there also have been occasions when this was not so”, he said.

He noted that the recent bill on children’s rights, because there was prior consultation and much consensus about its content, went through the parliamentary select committee process “like a hot knife through butter.”

“This Local Authority Election Amendment Bill, I am told…enjoys the broadest possible consensus at the level of the task force. So the feeling is that we are all aware of the timeframe, we are all committed to Local Government elections in 2009 and on that basis, the expectation that the select committee stage will not be prolonged and constitute a delay…is reasonable”.

GECOM Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally, in March said local government elections – last held 15 years ago – can be called by November 30 this year or even earlier.

Reacting to renewed concerns by President Jagdeo that the delay in calling fresh elections at the village, town and other community levels has been too long, the GECOM head said his team is prepared for the polls.

“We are prepared to have elections by November 30 and I think we can perhaps even do a bit better than that — but all is resting on the deliberations of the joint task force for local government reform”, Surujbally said.

The joint task force process, after some eight years, failed to advance the process and Mr. Jagdeo has said “if we can’t reach agreement at the bilateral level we would have to go Parliament and have the debates take place there (and probably go to a) select committee and whatever comes out of that then that would be the framework that would be guiding the elections.”

“But we absolutely have to move forward; it’s unacceptable that so many years after local government elections were held we’ve been unable to hold these elections…we’re not meeting the wishes of the people at the local government level”, he stated in March.

He argued that the joint task force should have been able to reach agreement after eight years and noted that it began working two years after he first became President.