Bomb alert at Region Four Returning Office to force persons out of tabulation room was hoax- GECOM Security Chief

Last Updated on Wednesday, 9 November 2022, 13:12 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) Chief Security Officer Ronald Stuart on Wednesday said after then Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxane Myers failed in her effort to get him to order several persons to vacate the tabulation room to allow Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo to do his work, a bomb hoax was called.

“She said they were interfering with the work of the Returning Officer Mr Mingo,” he told the Commission of Inquiry into the March 2020 general and regional elections, adding that he was expected to “stay and do his work when everybody gone.”  Mr Stuart said he never was informed by Mr Mingo that anyone was interfering  with his work and never had indication that that had been happening.

He recalled telling the Deputy Chief Election Officer that “that instruction was inappropriate and I am not going to carry it out” after which she said “ok” and terminated the phone call.

The GECOM Security Officer said before two men arrived at the Returning  Office and identified themselves as Criminal Investigations Department detectives and told him that they received a report of a bomb planted in the building, the Deputy Chief Election Officer had called him by telephone, identified herself and instructed him to clear the tabulation room of everyone except Mr Mingo who had work to do. Ms. Myers, he said, went downstairs and told him the he was sitting there, a bomb was planted in the building and they should be ordered out.

“I felt that those people in there were accredited, they were invited and if Ms Myers wanted them out, she should have been the person to go in there and to tell them to come out, not me,” he said, adding that he refused t0 do anything because the then Region Four Police Commander Assistant Commissioner Edgar Thomas had attempted to get them out but they did not move. He said GECOM’s hierarchy had invited the observers and so they should have told them to leave rather than “try to set me up.”

After Ms Myers returned upstairs, he said he heard persons shouting “no,no,no”.

Mr Stuart said that the day after he refused to carry out Ms Myers’ instructions, he resigned because he knew he would have been fired. He subsequently reapplied after the vacancy was advertised and he was reappointed to the post. He told the Commission of Inquiry that he bluntly refused to clear the tabulation of room of political party representatives and local and international observers including the American Ambassador, British High Commissioner and Canadian High Commissioner as well as two GECOM Commissioners.

Asked by one of the Commissioners of Inquiry whether he did not think it was a risk to disobey the instruction in the face of a report that a bomb had been planted in the building. “Everybody knew it was a hoax… It was plain. All the senior people of GECOM were upstairs with other people. Nobody made any attempt to leave upstairs to come downstairs to evacuate the building. Nobody at all left the building at any stage,” he said.

The GECOM Security Chief further recounted that the persons were adamant about staying in the tabulation room as they wanted to see what Mr Mingo was doing.

Mr Stuart said he walked off the job because “my integrity and my reputation were at stake” and he handed in his resignation to GECOM;s Human Resource Manager on March 6, 2020. He said he reapplied for the job and was reemployed in June 2022.

Only accredited persons, who were wearing badges, were allowed in the tabulation room. The then Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield was, according to Mr Stuart, was also in the Returning Office.