Surujbally fires back – says ethnic hiring comments could cause ‘societal divisiveness’

In light of recent comments made by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Clement Rohee who accused the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) of ethnic hiring, Chairman of the elections body Dr Steve Surujbally has stated that comments such as these can create “cleavages” in society.

Dr Surujbally was at the time addressing the closing ceremony of a two-day training session for media operatives on Local Government Elections (LGE) on Sunday.

He pointed out that when persons make statements such as GECOM has hired or that its staff is 95 per cent of a particular ethnic group and the media reports it without investigating or verifying to see whether is it true, then it could cause societal divisiveness.

 “It is not good enough to be making and allow this nation to be reading statements like you report that can only cause cleavage,” the Chairman stated.

According Dr Surujbally, if this was indeed the case then it would mean that the elections body has lapsed and is bias, which is not the case.

He outlined on the figures mentioned by the opposition: “Those figures would tell you that it is nothing like 95 per cent. Then we have to find out how many people applied of the various (ethnic) groups and of those people who applied, how many actually passed the exam. These are things that will get us to the truth,” he stated, while urging reporters to be cautious with such comments.

He noted that the media as well as politicians should do their part in not only building a togetherness society, but show the same attitude of togetherness in the thrust towards developing Guyana.

Dr Surujbally stressed that the media particularly need to use its resources to convince the citizenry that they are one. “The motto said so – we are one and we cannot allow anybody to create a cleavage. It is more than a cleavage when you are saying that a large percentage of GECOM staff is a net of one ethnic group. What you’re saying is that that majority ethnic group that is within GECOM cannot in fact carry out a neutral position, have a neutral position and carry out with transparency a great election. Now that’s damning to that one ethnic group, how can you accept that,” he questioned.

On Monday last at the party’s media conference, Rohee raised concerns about a distinct “ethnic imbalance” in the staff component at the country’s electoral institution and called on the diplomatic community to pay keen attention to the series of activities occurring on the lead-up to the March 18 LGE Day.

“We cannot understand, how when GECOM sets exams that one set of people are failing and another set of people are passing… how are these exams being set in such a way that only one set of people can pass and another set are failing?” Rohee wanted to know.

The General Secretary further pointed out that such imbalance is one of the tools being used to alter the results of the elections in a particular direction.