Justice Stanley Moore heads team probing employment practices at GECOM

Retired Justice Stanley Moore is leading a team appointed by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to investigate employment practices at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

The investigative body also includes Human Resources Consultant Jairam Petam and former Deputy Commissioner of Police Lloyd Smith, the ERC said.

The team was recently granted an extension to the initial three-week period for the completion of the investigation and the submission of a report to the ERC.

The investigative team was established following a complaint filed by the three GECOM Commissioners appointed by the Parliamentary Opposition.

The Commissioners have alleged that there is an ethnic imbalance in the staff composition at GECOM in favour of Afro-Guyanese.

The Commissioners – Sase Gunraj, Bibi Shaddick and Robeson Benn – are contending that the top positions at GECOM are mainly held by Afro-Guyanese.

But the GECOM Chair along with the Government-nominated Commissioners – Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman – have since dismissed those claims, insisting that there is no evidence to support the allegation.

Recently, GECOM Chairman Justice James Patterson said he has no apologies to make regarding the ethnic makeup of GECOM staff, arguing that competence is the prime consideration in its hiring practice.

Justice Patterson denied that GECOM was hiring Afro-Guyanese over Indo-Guyanese.

The ERC is intended, inter alia, to promote good relations, harmony, peace, tolerance and understanding between our peoples; provide equal opportunity between persons of different ethnic groups, and proscribe ethnic discrimination.