Though the anticipated reforms to the local government system are yet to be put in place, the Elections Commission has been using the time to put itself in order so that when the local government elections are called it will be in a state of readiness.
Under the present legislation, local government elections are to be held within a given time-frame following the national elections. The last elections were held in 1994 and since 1997 when they were due, the government has had to pass legislation deferring them, in the first instance because of a clash with the 1997 general elections and thereafter to accommodate the reforms that were and are still being formulated.
An Elections Commission official told Stabroek News that a number of housekeeping matters were being attended to such as formulating the procedures for the recruitment, training and dismissal of staff and looking at the re-designing and reducing the number of forms now in use by the commission as well the procedures for formulating its annual budget. Abolition of some the forms would require amending the relevant legislation.
The official said the commission had also been looking at the issue of voter education and an expert in this field was expected to be in Guyana shortly to assist the commission.
The official added that a foreign company, S V Jones Associates, was in the process of conducting a job evaluation and description exercise, which was scheduled for completion by the end of the month.
Other work in progress, the official said, was the formulation of the procedures for re-opening the commission's database which was made inaccessible since March 18, 2001. The political parties, Stabroek News understands, have been approached on the matter.
This newspaper understands too that the commission expects to be able to reopen the database shortly and the representatives of the political parties would be invited to witness this.
The commission, along with the representatives of the political parties, is also looking at the issue of continuous registration. Stabroek News understands that all the parties have agreed in principle to its introduction and that a workshop is being planned at which the pitfalls that such a registration system could pose would be identified. The commission expects to have the services of a number of experts on the system who would act as resource persons for the workshop.
The change in the registration system would also require amendments to the legislation to address the frequency with which the voters' list would have to be made available to the public for checking and the changes to the claims and objections procedure to accord with the system of continuous registration.