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The recent brouhaha over hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on scrutinising of the current House to House exercise raises new questions that apparently only the other parties involved will be in a position to answer. The AFC and GAP-ROAR had indicated in January 2008 that the there was deliberate plan to exclude the minority opposition parties, which in our view, was designed to marginalize them.
We expected the recent accusations and counter-accusations to surface as indeed there was zero accountability of monies earmarked for contesting parties to pay polling agents on Elections Day, August 26, 2006. The public need not ask which two parties alone secretly shared tens of millions of dollars on Election Day.
We had asked the good citizens of Guyana to be our eyes and ears in ensuring that precious resources being paid out by GECOM would be properly spent. In light of recent revelations, we believe that we are entitled to claim that we have been vindicated in our positions that it was legally, politically, and morally appropriate to have all parliamentary parties proportionally share in the state’s resources when it came to the securitisation of the House to House Registration process.
In terms of the President’s remarks that he made an error in not ensuring that the other parliamentary parties shared equitably in the vast amounts being spent on this very important process, we are neither impressed nor moved by his comments which have come four months and one hundred million dollars too late. By his own admission he is saying that he deliberately blocked our attempts to gain our just share of the monies.
We will not allow ourselves to be dragged into an ongoing hopeless battle and the blame-throwing that the other parties are engaged in. The battle between them is obviously more sinister, intense, and diabolic than meets the eye; almost as if serving some symbiotic purpose.
Given that the process is scheduled to continue for a further two months, and that there is every likelihood of an extension because of the slow process of registration, many millions more would have to be disbursed in the near future and it may be appropriate for the Auditor General to enquire into spending, not only of the PNCR, but also of the PPP/C and GECOM itself which is not without blame for the latest debacle.
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