Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh tabled the Office of the Spouse of the President Bill 2009 in the National Assembly yesterday. The Bill provides that where the office is held by a woman, it will be called the Office of the First Lady.
The tabling of the Bill comes just shy of three months after a furore at the start of the year over President Bharrat Jagdeo’s alleged treatment of former First Lady Varshnie Singh, who said the Office of the First Lady was a “myth.” Singh went public in January with complaints that she did not receive proper maintenance or care during their nine-year union. Singh, who revealed that the two were never legally married, also accused the head of state of, among other things, psychological domestic violence and using his authority to sideline her work for her sick children’s charity, the Kids First Fund.
According to the Bill’s explanatory memorandum, it has been considered necessary to create the office as a result of the “vital public functions which could be entrusted to and graced by the spouse of the President” as well as the “recognition and dignity attached to the person.” It also empowers the Minister “to specify from time to time” the allowances and other benefits which the holder of the Office shall be entitled to receive in discharging public functions. Upon enactment, the law for the creation of the office would come into force on a date the minister may appoint.
Jagdeo and Singh were married according to Hindu rites in July, 1998, but the union was never legally registered in accordance with the law. Two years ago, they announced that they had taken an amicable decision to end the “marriage” after growing apart over the years.
She indicated that she was seeking a proper settlement with him. Although the union was never legal, the law stipulates that in the division of property, a woman in a common-law marriage is entitled to a share of the property acquired during the marriage. Her decision to go public was preceded by her being locked out of the State House apartment where she had been staying since they announced their separation.
According to Singh, the first week into the marriage she was locked out of the couple’s bedroom without any explanation. She said she tried every single year of the marriage to get President Jagdeo to agree “to call it a day” and agree to a settlement, but to no avail. She said her decision to go public was a last resort which she thought could have been avoided if the couple had agreed on an amicable parting. “I wanted to avoid conflict because he is powerful and I am an ordinary person and even if I know I tell the truth it can be spun around.”
The President has, however, accused Singh of giving a “one-sided account of our whole history together,” but has been unwilling to discuss the issue, saying he wants to avoid being drawn into a public debate on the matter.
In a statement issued after Singh went public, Jagdeo said it was expected that Singh would have left State House when they announced their separation. He said that at the end of his tenure as president in 2011 he would also have to leave the residence and was “forced” to make a “painful decision” and take steps to have Singh leave, since she refused to do so despite numerous promises.
In response to charges that he denied her access to resources to support her charity work, the President said he had made it clear to her on more than one occasion that the resources of the state could not be used to support the work of a private charity, adding that it would be unethical for him to allow it.
On the division of assets, Jagdeo said he was “prepared to meet all my obligations to her provided for by the laws of Guyana,” but declared that he could not meet her demands to hand over government lands and other assets and provide duty and VAT-free concessions as part of the settlement.
