– President Ali defends Tourism Minister in dual citizenship fiasco

PRESIDENT Irfaan Ali has come out in defence of his Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond who is being accused of sitting in the National Assembly illegally because she did not renounce her United States (US) citizenship before she took the oath as a Member of Parliament (MP).
Minister Walrond has already clarified that she’d received her Certificate of Loss of Nationality prior to taking the oath to serve as a Parliamentarian on September 1, but she did not provide a specific date.

As a result, the Opposition A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition said it is considering to legally challenge Minister Walrond’s MP status as they called for her to resign.

But President Ali, while admitting that he did not request a copy of Minister Walrond’s certificate, told reporters on Monday that she is “an honourable woman”, and as such he is confident that she did the right thing.

“I am very comfortable that Minister Oneidge did what she had to do; Minister Oneidge is an honourable woman, and before she was sworn in, she advised the President of her dual citizenship, and that she did what had to be done in accordance with the Constitution. And I can tell you that she did it, and she has advised me that she has her certificate,” President Ali said when questioned by reporters on the sidelines of an event at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
President Ali said he did not enquire whether the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Sherlock Isaacs had received a copy of Minister Walrond’s certificate, but he again defended his Minister.

“What I can tell you is that I have no doubt that she would have communicated to the Clerk and to the Speaker, and would have demonstrated to them exactly what I am telling you,” the President said, adding:

“Minister Oneidge has nothing to hide; she is not in the category of those who went to an elections on a slate, and they did not denounce their citizenship. She is an honourable woman.”
Walrond, an attorney by profession, said in a statement on Saturday that she was asked by President Ali on August 5, 2020 to serve as a member of his Cabinet, an offer which she said she accepted, because it afforded her the opportunity to serve the people of Guyana.

According to the minister, she was advised by her lawyer that the sections of the Constitution prohibiting elected members from being dual citizens do not apply to her, since she is a Technocrat Minister. But she decided to renounce her US citizenship “out of an abundance of caution” and to “avoid any distraction to the good work of the government.”
According to the Tourism Minister, she wrote the U.S. Consular Office on August 18, 2020, renouncing her citizenship to that country with immediate effect, and complied with the process by August 27.

The minister was not a candidate for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in the March 02, 2020 elections, but was selected to be a Technocrat Minister, which basically means that she has no voting power in the National Assembly. The Constitution provides for four technocrats to sit in the National Assembly, once they meet the citizenship requirement to do so.
The issue of dual citizenship came up in 2019, after former AFC member, Mr. Charrandass Persaud crossed the floor in favour of the then Opposition PPP/C in a No-Confidence Motion against the APNU+AFC Government in December 2018.

Following legal challenges, the Court of Appeal ruled that a person holding dual citizenship was not entitled to be a member of the National Assembly.
Article 155 of the Constitution states: “(1) No person shall be qualified for election as a member of the National Assembly who, (a) is, by virtue of his or her own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state.”

In 2019, this led to the relinquishment of foreign citizenship by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira and her colleagues, Adrian Anamayah and Odinga Lumumba. It also saw former Ministers of government Joseph Harmon, Carl Greenidge, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine and Dominic Gaskin resigning as MPs, while Harmon and Greenidge relinquished their foreign citizenships.