VICE-PRESIDENT and Foreign Affairs Minister Mr Carl Greenidge has proposed a mandatory four-year rotation period for ambassadors and high commissioners in Guyana’s Foreign Service.He has disclosed that current ambassadors have two months to conclude their service.

In an exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle, the Minister lamented that political appointees in the previous Administration were allowed to serve for over 20 years in Guyana’s Foreign Service. He reasoned that, in most countries, diplomats serve for a period of two or four years before rotation, and asserted, “We will restore that.”

And Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Audrey Waddell, told this publication via telephone interview yesterday that Guyana currently has 17 missions. More specifically, she said, there are 12 embassies and high commissions, and 5 consulates.

Either an ambassador or a high commissioner heads 12 of Guyana’s 17 overseas missions, but the official title of any of the 12 heads depends on the customs of the country in which they are serving.
Explaining the process for recalling ambassadors, Ms Waddell explained that ambassadors are deployed to countries to represent the interests of the sending country’s president. The receiving country receives notice when the tour of duty of an ambassador has ended.

“When (a person is) appointed as an ambassador or high commissioner, the person would be granted a particular status as an envoy of the president of the sending country, and would have a right to conduct business on behalf of the sending country,” Waddell explained.

Concerns have been raised over the years that some envoys who served former presidents of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Governments have established families while serving their missions. Asked what measures the Ministry would take to recall an ambassador ensnared in such an extreme case, the Director-General said those envoys each make a personal decision whether or not to return to Guyana, but the reality is unchanged that they would no longer represent the interests of the sending country.

For his part, Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge weighed in on the situation of political appointees, as against those of career diplomats. “The practice is for career diplomats to be rotated; but for politicians, who are not career diplomats [and] have been brought in by the president, the president has to bring the term to an end when that president leaves office,” Greenidge recounted, as he affirmed that this should be Guyana’s principle.
He even called for heads of missions appointed by former presidents to step down from their posts. “There is nothing special about the PPP politicians who are wearing the hat of diplomats today. They have to recognise that they served the president that appointed them to serve him, and (they must) step down.”

Director-General Waddell has confirmed that, so far, no Head of Mission has returned to Guyana. Minister Greenidge is not bothered by this reality, since, according to him, the two-month period has not yet passed.

There have been reports that since the swearing-in of the David Granger Administration, heads of missions have begun returning to Guyana, but the Director-General has since denied this claim.

Waddell was further asked if Guyana’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Mr Ronald Gajraj, had returned to this country. Gajraj served for some time under the Jagdeo Administration as Home Affairs Minister, before being deployed to India, and later to Bangladesh. Gajraj is expected to tender his resignation within the stipulated two-month period.

Ambassador Waddell explained there are mechanisms to ensure that ambassadors comply with the request of the President to surrender their missions in worst-case scenarios, but she is hopeful that such measures would not have to be leveraged.

By Derwayne Wills