Government is standing by its position that it has not received a reply from United States Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to a request for a meeting it sent him.
Up to Thursday last, government insisted that it had not received a reply. “I am not aware [that he did],” Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd told Stabroek News.
Government sources told this newspaper that Jeffries sent no response “and if he said that he did, he should provide a copy of that correspondence”.
This newspaper also reached out to the Congressman’s office and asked if a reply had been sent, in addition to them responding to President Irfaan Ali’s chiding of Jeffries to stop playing politics with this country.
Jeffries’ Communication Director Andy Eichar on Thursday asked for a deadline for sending a response and was told 5pm on Friday. He was again written to on Friday and he replied saying that will have a response but may not be able to meet the deadline.
The Communications Director was told to send the response whenever it is available but up to press time yesterday there had been no reply.
Following his return from Washington, earlier this month, where Guyana signed a US$2 billion Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S EXIM Bank, Ali blasted critics of the visit.
Jeffries, in particular, came in for rebuke as he was singled out for what Ali believes was his refusal to meet with him during the visit to Washington.
“I see in one article the name Jeffries mentioned. This president asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the ambassador to write him, inviting him to a meeting. He has not responded to the ambassador’s invitation. Ask yourself, why? If you have all these concerns, why you haven’t attended a meeting that you were invited to?” Ali questioned.
“Stop playing politics with the future of a country. This President will not allow it. I will speak about it. And in stronger terms as I speak about it,” Ali asserted.
In response to a letter to the editor published in Stabroek News in which dual citizen Wesley Kirton declared it to have been undiplomatic for Jeffries not to reply, President of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy Rickford Burke has claimed that he had contacted Jeffries’ office and was told that there had been a response and told of the contents of it.
“Upon inquiry I was advised by the Congressman’s staff that Guyana’s Ambassador in Washington wrote the Congressman requesting an individual meeting with Irfaan Ali. The congressman’s staff responded that there will be no one-on-one meeting, but that the Congressman is interested in a meeting between President Ali and all of the members of Congress who represent the majority of Guyanese across the US, including Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, as they all have similar concerns,” Burke wrote.
“The Embassy never responded to the Congressman’s request for such a meeting,” he added in his letter.
