Dear Editor,
I refer to your news item `Auditor General to face challenge over continued holding of office’ (KW August 20, 2026).
This original appointment has been a sore issue for some Guyanese, including both former Auditor-General Anand Goolsarran and his attorney in this new litigation process, Chris Ram, and it actually predates Deodat Sharma’s two-year job extension request to President Irfaan Ali.
On June 25, 2012, Chris did write an opinion piece on his chrisram.net website, “It is time Guyana has a proper Auditor-General,” in which Sharma’s qualifications for the job was raised. But, in a surprise move four months later, President Donald Ramotar upgraded Sharma’s seven-year acting status to substantive on October 31, 2012, “Sharma confirmed Auditor-General, after seven years acting,” Stabroek News, November 1, 2012.
At that time, my understanding is that Sharma was 54 years old, so it raises serious questions about motive if he is 68 and still wants to stay on until 70. Anyway, while the mandatory retirement age for public servants is 55, he could have continued beyond 55 with the blessing of the President.
But even as questions and concerns about his qualifications continued to swirl, his retirement age itself became a new issue. Sharma then reportedly sought to clarify that the retirement age for him was actually 60, but there was also a provision that allowed him to continue acting until he turned 65, “Acting Auditor-General says he can continue in post until 65, Goolsarran disagrees,” Stabroek News, October 1, 2012.
Goolsarran, who had spent considerable time pointing out Sharma lacked the constitutionally required qualifications for the job, retorted in the aforementioned news article that a substantive Auditor-General’s retirement age was 65 but an acting Auditor-General’s retirement age was 55.
But while the resolution of Sharma’s 2012 retirement issue likely explained why Ramotar may have made the confirmation move when Sharma was reportedly 54, persons monitoring the situation back then believed that had Sharma gone into retirement at 55, his eligible successor would have been Deputy Auditor-General, Geeta Singh, who also happens to be the wife of Finance Minister Ashni Singh.
With the appearance of a conflict of interest looming large for an Auditor-General Geeta Singh overseeing auditing of the work of her husband Finance Minister Ashni Singh – and with Ashni having once worked as Deputy Auditor-General and Auditor-General, allowing him to be very intimately familiar with the type of work his wife is doing – it would not strain credulity to raise questions about potential for interference or influence, thus demanding recusals from them continuing to function as Finance Minister and Auditor-General. At least one of them has to go.
Now, this is where the chess-like move of Sharma’s request for a two-year extension comes with forceful clarity into our range of vision. At 68 this year, does he need two more years to provide cover for Geeta Singh? While I don’t have any record of Geeta Singh’s age, her husband Ashni Singh, who was 17 years old when he was interviewed by Stabroek News (March 21, 1990) as one of six Public Service Ministry scholars following the 1989 GCE ‘A’ Level examinations, should put him at 53 or 54 years old. If his wife is around that age, too, then in two years, both of them would be statutorily eligible for retirement benefits as public servants.
If Sharma is providing cover so Geeta does not become Auditor-General or be bypassed by someone else for the position, then the PPPs long game here continues to exemplify it has many strategic moves in its bag of tricks that benefits those who ‘serve’. Not to knock Sharma’s professionalism, but his lack of qualifications for his job right now begins to look no different from government contractors who lack qualifications for projects. On the PPPs big screen, everyone serves a purpose because loyalty, not qualifications, is what pays.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
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