Former first lady Varshnie Singh has described the recent passage of the Office for the Spouse of the President Bill by the National Assembly as a good move.
The National Assembly on April 30 unanimously passed the bill which will see the establishment of the office that entitles the holder to allowances and other benefits for discharging public functions.
Singh recently told this newspaper that she was not aware of the full details of the legislation but felt it was a welcome initiative that would be helpful to future first ladies. She said she had heard suggestions that Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh might decide to make the bill retroactive, but was not optimistic this would happen.
During the tabling of the bill on April 9, and the debate before its passage on April 30, there was no suggestion that the piece of legislation would become retroactive.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, at a press conference last month, said the Office was being set up because the government felt it was necessary.
Meanwhile, Singh said she has had no contact with President Jagdeo since her controversial press conference in January. She said that as a result, no further settlement has been reached. According to her, this means that the settlement remains at $5 million and she is yet to receive any of it.
Singh recently returned from the United Kingdom, where she had travelled to raise funds for the Kids First Fund, a charitable organisation she heads. She said Guyana continues to be her home and she remains committed to the organisation she heads.
In January, Singh went public with complaints that she had not received proper maintenance or care during her nine-year union with Jagdeo. Singh, who revealed that the two were never legally married, also accused the President of, among other things, psychological domestic abuse and using his authority to sideline her work for her sick children’s charity, the Kids First Fund.
She also indicated that she was seeking a proper settlement with Jagdeo. 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.
The President, however, accused Singh of giving a “one-sided account of our whole history together,” but indicated his unwillingness to be drawn into a public debate on the matter.
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 that.
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 land and other assets and provide duty and VAT-free concessions as part of the settlement.
