Retired Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Harmon has been removed from the post of Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, where he had been since May 2019 after it was revealed that he was a dual citizen and could no longer serve as a Member of Parliament.
On Friday it was annou
Former Director General of the MotP, Joseph Harmon
nced that Harmon was taking up a new role as Chief Executive Officer of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF). Then on Saturday, it was clarified by the Ministry of the Presidency that he is no longer its Director General.
“As CEO, Mr Harmon under the general or specific directions of the Chairman of the NCTF is to establish a permanent National Task Force Secretariat; assign permanent staff to manage the national campaign; create preventive measures against the disease to safeguard citizens’ health and collaborate with regional task forces and stakeholders to safeguard citizens’ health,” the Ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry also listed some of Harmon’s other functions, in his new role. These functions include coordinating responses to emergency incidents and developing logistical measures for containing the spread of the coronavirus.
Harmon previously served as Minister of State until April 25, 2019, when he had to resign both as a Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) because of court rulings at the time which reaffirmed the law barring persons with dual citizenship from sitting in the National Assembly. Since a Minister must also sit in the National Assembly, he was barred from holding that position.
In addition to Harmon, who was an American citizen, the rulings also saw former Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge, former Business Minister Dominic Gaskin and former Public Service Minister Dr Rupert Roopnaraine being forced to resign.
After his resignation, the position of Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency was created especially for him. Although he was no longer a Minister of Government, Harmon was still attending Cabinet meetings and hosting the post-Cabinet press briefings he had previously hosted as Minister of State. Harmon subsequently announced in November of last year that he had given up his citizenship.
Hiring of lobbyist firm
Harmon’s removal as Director General and assignment to his new post comes just days after confusion swirled over who hired lobbyist firm JJ&B LLC to plead the caretaker coalition Government’s case against sanctions in the United States and the compilation of a dossier against the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), that has since been dismissed as a “tissue of lies.”
The United States has been at the forefront in mounting international pressure for the March 2 elections results to be credible and transparent, following fraudulent declarations made by embattled Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
As such, the coalition had hired Washington-based lobbyist firm JJ&B LLC to engage the US Department of State on its behalf in changing the narrative on the current political and electoral impasse.
Harmon had defended the retainment of the firm, saying that as a Government “it was our duty, our responsibility” to defend themselves in Washington. In the document filed with the US Department of Justice, which was received by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit of the United States National Security Division on March 31, 2020, the Guyana Government was named the ‘foreign principal’.
In addition, the Ministry of the Presidency was listed as the agency that is being represented by the lobbyist firm; and Harmon was named as the official with whom the company engages. However, the President, through the Ministry of the Presidency, had then come out and denied hiring the firm.
According to the Ministry in a statement, President Granger was not involved in the hiring of the said lobbyist firm. However, Alliance For Change (AFC) leader Khemraj Ramjattan had also said that Granger may have been ignorant of the hiring of the firm. Harmon was listed as a United States citizen in the dossier. On November 14, 2019, Harmon announced that his US citizenship had been officially renounced, a move which paved the way for him to continue his political career in Guyana. However, if Harmon is not a US citizen then he can be charged for committing a federal crime. Additionally, if he is still a US citizen then he misled the Guyanese public when he announced that he had renounced his US citizenship.
