Renu­ka Singh

The Pub­lic Diplo­ma­cy of­fice at Guyana’s Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs has con­firmed that for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh is now em­ployed “by the Gov­ern­ment of Guyana as Di­rec­tor of Trade, In­vest­ment and Agri­cul­ture”.

The for­mer min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment has al­so con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that he is now at­tached to the Guyanese of­fice in Port-of-Spain.

Singh’s qui­et ap­point­ment has trig­gered some racial crosstalk with­in the Guyanese gov­ern­ment.

He did not re­spond to fol­low up ques­tions about the ap­point­ment or the racial talk that it in­spired.

Pres­i­dent of the CGID, Rik­ford Burk is con­tend­ing that the “racist” PPP re­moved an African-Guyanese from the lo­cal Guyanese Con­sulate in or­der to ap­point Singh.

He is al­so ac­cus­ing the PPP of cre­at­ing the post in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate pay­back to Singh for work he did for them dur­ing the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions in Guyana.

While the Guyanese Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs did not speak to Singh’s ap­point­ment, they did re­spond to Burk and con­demned the in­her­ent racism in his al­le­ga­tions. The Guyanese Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs said that “any fair and ob­jec­tive as­sess­ment of the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion’s eth­nic com­po­si­tion of se­nior, mid-lev­el and ju­nior diplo­mats will show that the min­istry con­sists of a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Afro Guyanese make-up”.

The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs ad­dressed the racial make-up but not Burk’s con­cerns about Singh’s ap­point­ment.

“This re­al­i­ty has per­sist­ed through­out suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions. In 2021, the Min­istry post­ed 16 mid-lev­el and ju­nior diplo­mats to our over­seas mis­sions - 15 of whom are Afro Guyanese, 1 be­ing an In­do Guyanese,” the Min­istry said.

Burk said that the PPP was “fund­ing UNC politi­cian in Trinidad and To­ba­go with mil­lions of Guyanese tax dol­lars”.

Burk said that the Guyanese Gov­ern­ment was “bankrolling a UNC politi­cian as pay­back for eth­nic, po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty. This is a crim­i­nal fleec­ing of Guyanese tax­pay­ers to ad­vance a cor­rupt, po­lit­i­cal and eth­nic ax­is be­tween the PPP and UNC”.

Burk said that dur­ing the 2020 elec­tions in Guyana, Singh came to the na­tion to help cam­paign “for the racist PPP”.

“Now, in a cor­rupt pay­back scheme, the PPP gov­ern­ment is se­cret­ly pump­ing Guyanese tax­pay­ers dol­lars in­to Gan­ga Singh’s bank ac­counts,” Burk said.

“The PPP gov­ern­ment has re­moved the African Guyanese Con­sul Gen­er­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and has hired Gan­ga Singh to per­form the Con­sul Gen­er­al du­ties un­der the guise of a bo­gus ap­point­ment as Di­rec­tor of Trade, In­vest­ment and Agri­cul­tur­al at the Guyana Con­sulate in Port of Spain,” he said.

Burk said that un­der the arrange­ment, Singh will “re­port di­rect­ly to the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, like Am­bas­sadors”.

“Most out­ra­geous­ly, the PPP regime is pay­ing Gan­ga Singh over USD $10,000.00 a month, over $2 mil­lion Guyana dol­lars,” he said.

Burk is now call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ap­point­ment and has called on the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and the Guyanese Spe­cial Or­gan­ised Crime Unit to de­ter­mine whether the pay­ments be­ing rout­ed through Wash­ing­ton and then to a bank in Guyana are tax eva­sion.

“The CGID calls on the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Spe­cial Or­gan­ised Crime Unit of the Guyana Po­lice Force and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al of Guyana, to in­ves­ti­gate this mat­ter to de­ter­mine if any tax eva­sion or mon­ey laun­der­ing laws are be­ing vi­o­lat­ed by these al­leged trans­ac­tions,” he said.

The racial ac­cu­sa­tions al­so con­tin­ued with Burk said that the PPP would “ nev­er have paid an African Guyanese ca­reer For­eign Ser­vice Of­fi­cer a month­ly salary of over USD $10,000.00. Nev­er!”.

He al­so claimed that the po­si­tion was “fake” and cre­at­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the pay­back to Singh.

“Singh, who as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go, is in­el­i­gi­ble to be ac­cred­it­ed as a diplo­mat in Trinidad,” Burk said.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, this clum­sy, un­eth­i­cal, and most like­ly, il­le­gal, shenani­gan is a di­rect cir­cum­ven­tion of the Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion on Diplo­mat­ic Re­la­tions,” Burk said.

The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs in Guyana ac­cused Burk of be­ing “reck­less and disin­gen­u­ous” in his ac­cu­sa­tions based on race and said that Burke se­lec­tive­ly sin­gled out two “ex­cep­tion­al­ly qual­i­fied In­di­vid­u­als of In­di­an de­scent, in a bid to fu­el his self­ish am­bi­tions and par­ti­san out­fit”.

“His ac­tions are tan­ta­mount to one who is racist and di­vi­sive,” the min­istry said.

“Guyanese of all races and de­mo­graph­ic will not coun­te­nance the false and mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tive from a char­ac­ter such as Burke. In fact, it is ob­vi­ous that Guyanese across the di­as­po­ra feel very sick­ened by the vile and ob­nox­ious be­hav­iour of Burke who pur­ports to pa­rade as a black pro­gres­sive leader. It is clear that Burke abus­es the free­doms pro­vid­ed in a ma­ture de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety in a de­struc­tive de­ter­ri­to­ri­al­ized imag­i­nary man­ner,” the Min­istry said.

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UNC: noth­ing to do with us

Lo­cal­ly, when asked about Singh’s ap­point­ment, the UNC said that Singh was no longer “an ac­tive mem­ber of the UNC in any of our par­ty or­gans”.

“We can­not con­firm any such al­le­ga­tions,” the par­ty PRO Kirk Meighoo said and di­rect­ed ques­tions back to Singh.

“This, frankly, has noth­ing to do with the UNC,” Meighoo said.