Favouritism, cronyism and nepotism will not be associated with the employment procedures being used by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). This was emphasized by Mr. Keith Lowenfield, Chief Election Officer (CEO) during his address at the opening session of the two-day Training of Trainers Programme at the St Joseph High.
Speaking to an audience of approximately 200 attendees, including Registration Officers and Senior Staff of the GECOM Secretariat, Mr. Lowenfield made it absolutely clear that personswill be considered for employment on the basis of how they perform at the evaluation that was done at the end of the Training and will not be based on relationships. “So, those of you who may feel that you don’t have to pass the evaluation because you know someone in authority at GECOM who promised you the job – you are dead wrong. That will not happen” the CEO exclaimed.
The CEO clarifies that while GECOM’s work may be affected by the political environment, the work of the Secretariat employees is apolitical. Based on this position, he noted that, as a matter of policy, GECOM does not and will not hire political activists. “So those of you who may be card bearing party members, if we have any here among us today – don’t go further. Our image is sacred and we will not allow it to be contaminated with party activists among our ranks”, Mr. Lowenfield underscored. He gave the guarantee that GECOM’s employment procedure will be guided strictly by the principles of candidates’ suitability to the respective positions in consideration of their relative qualifications, experiences, competences and other qualitative strengths.
In the case of the persons currently being trained, the Notice inviting applications for the position of Trainers was published in the print media. Secured boxes were placed at all of GECOM’s Registration Offices across Guyana for interested persons to submit their respective applications. This exercise was carried out in addition to persons submitting their applications directly to the Human Resource manager via his official email address.
The ‘application boxes’ were brought to the Secretariat where they were unlocked and opened by the Human Resource Manager. Each application was then documented. Thereafter, the applicants who met the published requirements were shortlisted by the Human Resource Manager, under the supervision of the Deputy Chief Election Officer and the Chief Election Officer. The shortlisted applicants were then invited for training. The CEO gave the guarantee that this will be the Standard Operating Procedure, under the guidance of the Commission, insofar as GECOM’s employment procedures are concerned.
On a related matter, Mr. Lowenfield pointed out that the GECOM Secretariat was in the process of preparing guidelines for ‘blacklisting’ persons who, for appropriate reasons, conduct themselves in any way that would bring disrepute to the Organisation. In this regard, he zeroed in on previous occurrences wherein persons deliberately flouted established procedures relative to registration and election projects and noted that, as a result of the “blacklisting” strategy any temporary or permanent employee who indulges in such malpractices shall henceforth be entered in the ‘blacklist’ and will not be employed by GECOM in the foreseeable future
The conduct of the two-day Training of Trainers Programme marked the commencement of a series of other Training Programmes that will be conducted countrywide towards the creation of a reservoir of personnel who would be trained comprehensively about Guyana’s Registration and Election (General, Regional and Local) processes. The objectives of this strategy are for GECOM to (i) have readily available persons who could be employed temporarily to work for any registration and/or election project at short notice and (ii) remove the need for extensive cyclical training which is very costly and time consuming.
Attendees at the Training Programme included persons form all of Guyana’s Administration Regions/Electoral Divisions. The training was conducted by GECOM’s Senior Registration Officers.
