– General Secretary assures
THE 29th Congress of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) will be held on August 2 and 3 at Diamond Secondary School, East Bank Demerara.

General Secretary Donald Ramotar confirmed it yesterday, when he announced that a recent meeting of the Central Committee reviewed preparations for the holding — under the theme ‘Strengthen the Party; Secure the Future; Accelerate Development.’

That meeting expressed satisfaction with the work of the Congress Committee and the forum is expected to be very exciting, occurring at a time of heightened political activities and many challenges that are facing the nation, he said.

Ramotar disclosed that the two-day caucus will analyse the international, the socio-economic and political situations and other issues impacting on the life of the nation.

Additionally, a new committee, to guide the party’s activities in the immediate future will be elected, he informed.

Ramotar said the present committee has taken note that some speculation has begun, particularly in those media houses hostile to the PPP, over its Presidential Candidate for the 2001 General Elections.

“The Central Committee wishes to assure its members and supporters that the party has an established mechanism to determine this matter. At the appropriate time, this will be triggered and the decision will be made known, firstly to the party members and supporters and then the general public,” the General Secretary stated.

He said the PPP has advised its members and supporters not to be distracted by any kind of speculation, especially by forces opposed to the PPP, but focus on the work of strengthening the party.

Registration problems
Ramotar also alluded to problems being encountered in the house-to-house registration process and acknowledged that the situation with birth certificates and issues relating to the names of persons are yet to be resolved.

“The Central Committee noted also that the pace of work in editing and encoding information from the field is too slow and would surely delay the process of producing a new list that is necessary for local government elections,” he said.

Ramotar said the Central Committee urged that all efforts be made to remove the various bottlenecks to ensure a successful completion of the registration exercise.

He said the exercise, which is scheduled to be completed in 190 days had only accomplished 66.3 per cent up to May 11.

Ramotar said Guyana Election Commission (GECOM) has only achieved 64.8 per cent of its projected target and is behind its schedule.

According to him, the achievement of several registration centres are even lower than the overall May 11 results.

“While the rate of submission of completed work in the field has increased significantly since I last raised the issue, the following centres still have unacceptable submission rates - East Coast Demerara 63.5 per cent and Lethem 74.1,” Ramotar claimed.

He admitted a slight improvement since he last reported to the media but said the situation remains unsatisfactory.

Ramotar said GECOM has completed 383,053 transactions in the field but the editing team has only finished 163,157 or 37.1 per cent.

“This, once again, raises the question of the preparation for local government elections in time for this year…the situation with the encoding continues to be very unsatisfactory …only 108,377 or 28.3 per cent of the completed registration done in the field was entered into the database,” he said.

“… this position is extremely unsatisfactory and GECOM needs to try to accelerate their internal work.”