The opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) on Monday said it was astonished at the recent decision by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to share its database with the Ministries of Education and Social Protection.
PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee said the party was deeply concerned that some of the information being shared includes the confidential details of registrants.
“This is unprecedented in the history of the electoral process in Guyana and since the establishment of GECOM,” Rohee said.
He is not prepared to accept the justification provided by GECOM’s Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally and rejected it as spurious, saying it creates grounds for suspicion.
“Electoral skullduggery facilitated by the APNU+AFC and Mr. Surujbally is once again in the making,” Rohee charged.
“The use of linkages between GECOM’s and the Ministry of Education’s respective public relations programmes to inveigle GECOM to share unsolicited, its database with the Ministry of Education is fraught with unimaginable implications for free and fair elections in Guyana,” he added.
Rohee said too that the the justification to share GECOM’s database with the Ministry of Social Protection in order for that Ministry to rectify the names and addresses of pensioners smacks of deep suspicion that GECOM’s database could be used for other sinister electoral purposes.
“In any event, sharing of GECOM’s database with either of these two Ministries is unnecessary and uncalled for since both Ministries have the institutional capacity to rectify their respective institutional deficiencies,” Rohee noted.
He could not say whether GECOM was violating any laws by sharing the information. Rohee wants GECOM to validate the legality of sharing its database with government agencies.
“The Party is of the strong view that the Nation must be consulted in respect to the unsolicited release of confidential personal data of citizens captured in National Register of Registrants (NRR) to government agencies and departments, a practice that has no precedent in Guyana.”
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