Only Guyana’s Ambas-sador to Suriname, Keith George and the Permanent Representative to the United Nations, George Talbot will be retained by the APNU+AFC administration and new envoys are to be appointed to the US, UK and Canada among other places.
In keeping with the usual protocol once the government changes, the envoys were expected to tender their resignations and 17 in senior postings will be replaced as they are considered by the new administration to be political appointees.
“If you are a political appointee in a foreign service you know you have to go at the end of that administration’s term they all know that,” Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge told Stabroek News yesterday.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs nonetheless has assured that except for the ambassadors and high commissioners, all other category of employees attached to the respective missions overseas will keep their jobs. “There will be no mass firing like what happened in 1992 when you had persons going to every country and firing people that were gainfully employed,” Greenidge said. That remark was a clear reference to former Foreign Minister Clement Rohee who had visited several capitals after the PPP/C came to power and dismissed diplomats and others there.
Greenidge explained that normally heads of respective missions overseas would resign before an election and if not, after. He said that he has not yet been able to determine which of the high commissioners or ambassadors have tendered resignations but was confident that all would have as they were aware of established protocol.
“I would expect that they have… by and large if you are a political appointee in a foreign service you know you have to go at the end of the term.
This would mean that the 23-year-old tenure held by Laleshwar K. N. Singh in London will end. Singh was residing in London at the time of his appointment to the Court of St James’s in 1992.
Also leaving would be Bayney Karran who was Ambassador to the United States and to the Organisation of American States, Geoffrey Da Silva in Venezuela and Merlin Udho in Brazil among others. Former embattled Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj, who served as Guyana’s High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh, has already resigned the positions and is back home.
High Commissioner of Guyana to Canada, Harry Narine Nawbatt who had been campaigning for the PPP/C in Amerindian villages in Region Nine earlier this month and had voted here on May 11th last has also resigned, Stabroek News was told.
Guyana also has ambassadors and High Commissioners serving in Belgium, Barbados China, Cuba, Kuwait, South Africa and Greece.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said that career diplomats will retain their jobs since although they served during the previous administration their appointments were based on their suitability for the posts.
“The career diplomats who have been doing their jobs and so on is different and I have no reason to believe that they will be a problem…it is different from say GINA or NCN where people have taken state resources to do the bidding of an existing government,” he posited.
He said that the David Granger administration will soon be looking at replacements and an announcement will be made after the new envoys have been chosen.
