THE Government of Guyana has rejected the ‘conflict of interest’ gambit that is being orchestrated by political commentators such as Christopher Ram, Anand Goolsaran and others against Geetanjali Singh of the Audit Office of Guyana.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon said the premature pronouncement by these political commentators essentially prejudices the outcome of ongoing investigations by professional bodies into the ‘conflict of interest’ claims occasioned by Singh’s husband being Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh.
The HPS called for women’s groups to publicly reject the criticisms, since their basis are flawed.
Luncheon said if being someone’s spouse is the sole basis to constitute conflict of interest, there would be many more such cases being raised.
“The obvious gender discrimination in this charade of conflict of interest, Cabinet contended, cannot be allowed to go unanswered and unnoticed, and must be rejected by all including the nation’s women’s organisations and interest groups,” Dr Luncheon told reporters.
According to him, the “intellectual authors of this travesty” have pronounced prematurely, as an investigation is currently ongoing by independent bodies – an investigation that could be prejudiced by such comments.
Singh, a Chartered Accountant, has served at the Audit Office in senior capacities for several years. The call for her removal comes notwithstanding previous clarifications that she is not involved in the auditing of accounts of those agencies in which her husband is a part of in any way.