…commences process to renounce US citizenship

FORMER Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, has been temporarily reassigned as Director General in the Ministry of the Presidency and will now take on some of the President’s responsibilities under the new portfolio.

He made the announcement on Tuesday, following Cabinet meeting which was held in Linden to simultaneously facilitate the Government’s multi-ministerial outreach to Region 10 (Upper Demerara – Berbice)

Harmon also made it clear that he is not out of the political running and will be back in Parliament to represent his country after the next General and Regional elections. The residents of Linden were among the first to know of the reassignment as they gathered at the New Silvercity Secondary School for a public meeting with ministers.
“He [the President] announced, today, the appointment of myself as the Director General in the Ministry of the Presidency,” he began.

“What the President said is that some of his functions he will assign to me to carry out. So, just as I’ve been doing for all of these years — I’ve been working very closely with the President…so he has appointed me in that capacity.”

Harmon resigned as a Member of Parliament and a Minister as a consequence of a court ruling that upheld that persons with dual citizenship would not be an MP in Guyana. The issue of dual citizenship was brought to the front burner after AFC Member of Parliament Charrandass Persaud, who holds dual citizenship, broke ranks and voted in favour of the opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion to bring down his own government last December. A farmer of New Amsterdam, Compton Reid, has challenged the validity of the vote of no-confidence on the basis that Persaud is a dual citizen. The government had also raised the issue of dual citizenship with respect to Persaud.

At the meeting, Harmon also took the opportunity to make a clarification about his own situation and why he resigned from being a Minister of Government. Government MPs with dual citizenship tendered their resignations to the President on Monday April 1, 2019, in keeping with the indications of High Court and Court of Appeal that it is unconstitutional for a person who swore allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state to be a Member of Parliament.

These included former Vice-President and Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge; Harmon; former Minister of Public Service, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine and former Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin.
“I did not choose to resign in place of renunciation. I want to make that very clear because some of my supporters, some people all over the country, they say ‘why did you resign? Why you didn’t give back the American people their passport?’ Well, I gave up the passport but I had to resign so that the processes can go on,” Harmon explained.

He told the audience that the process of renouncing one’s dual citizenship takes on a certain procedure which must see the minister first resigning from Government. Noting, some of the concerns of supporters that the government would be losing a well-functioning Minister, Harmon assured that this is not the case. “I wrote His Excellency, the President, that I have commenced the process of renunciation of US citizenship and therefore by the time we come around to the next elections, I’ll be ready to go back in to the parliament,” Harmon said to an outburst of applause.
In the meanwhile, the Director General stated that, being out of Parliament, he will be able to spend more time interacting directly with the public in keeping with his personal commitment to public service.