Georgetown: General Secretary of the PPP/C Bharrat Jagdeo has written the Department of Justice, informing the US Government that it is being misled by the Washington-based lobbyist firm, JJ&B LLC that was hired by the APNU/AFC coalition to engage the US State Department on its behalf in changing the narrative on the current political and electoral impasse.
“We have filed a complaint with the Justice Department against the firm… we’ve filed a complaint that the FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit, which received the document from lobbyist firm] filings misled the US Government when they claim to be representing the Government of Guyana,” Jagdeo stated.
Jagdeo said that companies have been heavily penalised through huge fines and other measures, even imprisonment, for misleading the Justice Department.
The United States has been at the forefront in mounting international pressure for the March 2 General and Regional Elections results to be credible and transparent, following fraudulent declarations made by embattled Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
The dossier that was filed on March, 31 listed the Guyana Government as the ‘foreign principal’; the Ministry of the Presidency was named the agency that is being represented by the lobbyist firm; and recently sacked Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon, was named as the official with whom the company engages.
Despite this, however, Harmon, who is also the campaign manager for the APNU/AFC coalition, had stated that it was the coalition’s supporters that wanted to change the narrative reaching capitals around the world and had even forked up the US$72,000 to pay the lobbyist firm.
In fact, both caretaker President David Granger and his Former Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan have since claimed that it was the party that hired the firm and not the Government. However, the documents filed with the Justice Department state that the Government of Guyana is the foreign principal.
A statement from the Ministry of the Presidency last week stated, “the Government of Guyana has not hired JJ&B LLC and has no contractual arrangement or affiliation with the said firm. No Government funds were used to hire the firm.”
To this end, Jagdeo posited on Friday that, “So it meant that the filing with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] was fraudulent, it was fake and all of the congressmen and the others to whom they have distributed this dossier, this company has illegally done so because they’ve done so on behalf of the Government of Guyana when the Government of Guyana, through President Granger’s statement, made it clear that he did not hire this company and he doesn’t know who they are.”
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