Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

For­mer Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) head Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine yes­ter­day con­fessed to chang­ing her name legal­ly to Shashi Rehka in May last year for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons but she de­nied be­ing em­ployed by the Gov­ern­ment. And, the back­stab­bing from both "close friends" and politi­cians all played a part in her de­ci­sion. It has all been re­vealed tell-all style in a let­ter ad­dressed to the House Speak­er Wade Mark dat­ed yes­ter­day which was ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian.

The ad­mis­sion came one day af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley dropped the 'bomb­shell' in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day when he pi­lot­ed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against the Prime Min­is­ter. Row­ley re­vealed that Ram­nar­ine had changed her name by a deed poll and al­leged that she was em­ployed at a cer­tain min­istry. But while ad­mit­ting to the name change, Ram­nar­ine took is­sue with the al­le­ga­tion of her be­ing em­ployed at the min­istry.

Ac­cus­ing Row­ley of abus­ing par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, Ram­nar­ine de­mand­ed an apol­o­gy from him. She in­sist­ed that he made "false" and "base­less" al­le­ga­tions to tar­nish her rep­u­ta­tion. Ram­nar­ine, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands, is now seek­ing le­gal ad­vice on the mat­ter fol­low­ing the rev­e­la­tion.

"Dr Row­ley's state­ments are un­true and de­signed to per­se­cute me for po­lit­i­cal gain, and, in my re­spect­ful view con­sti­tute an abuse of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege since he used this sa­cred po­si­tion to un­leash an un­found­ed and ma­li­cious at­tack up­on me, a pri­vate cit­i­zen en­ti­tled by law to all rights en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion."

It was the overnight ap­point­ment of Ram­nar­ine to head the SSA that sparked months of con­tro­ver­sy af­ter her qual­i­fi­ca­tions were ques­tioned. She sub­se­quent­ly re­signed from the post. Ram­nar­ine fur­ther stat­ed that since her res­ig­na­tion she had be­come the sub­ject of a smear cam­paign by mem­bers of the me­dia and politi­cians.

"Since my res­ig­na­tion I have been the sub­ject of a smear cam­paign pro­pelled by per­sons in the me­dia who I once count­ed as close friends, as well as politi­cians who sought to score po­lit­i­cal points by us­ing me as a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball. "The smear cam­paign has re­sult­ed in me be­ing false­ly ac­cused of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct and my per­son­al safe­ty be­ing threat­ened by those I had for­mal­ly mon­i­tored.

"In or­der to pro­tect my­self as a pri­vate cit­i­zen from se­cu­ri­ty risks and con­tin­ued pub­lic and per­son­al ma­lign­ing and vic­tim­i­sa­tion, I de­cid­ed to have my name changed," she stat­ed in the let­ter to House Speak­er Mark. Deny­ing that she was em­ployed or con­tract­ed with any gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion or min­istry, Ram­nar­ine stat­ed the fol­low­ing:

• That I changed my name be­cause of se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons aris­ing from those I for­mal­ly mon­i­tored, which were crim­i­nal el­e­ments in­volved in some of the most se­ri­ous crimes com­mit­ted in the coun­try as the Strate­gic In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA) was a part of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment's fight against crime;

• That my res­ig­na­tion be­came nec­es­sary af­ter my po­si­tion in the SIA and per­son­al safe­ty was com­pro­mised;

• That since my res­ig­na­tion be­came nec­es­sary af­ter my po­si­tion in the SIA and per­son­al safe­ty was com­pro­mised;

• That since my res­ig­na­tion I have not been em­ployed by nor con­tract­ed to or in any way en­sconced in the gov­ern­ment with a con­tract­ed job or a job of any form. In fact, I am cur­rent­ly un­em­ployed;

• Since my res­ig­na­tion I have had no con­tact with any po­lit­i­cal mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Con­gress of the Peo­ple, PNM or oth­er po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Ram­nar­ine fur­ther claimed that al­so con­tribut­ing to the de­ci­sion to change her name was the dif­fi­cul­ty she had ob­tain­ing em­ploy­ment. She stat­ed that since her res­ig­na­tion in March 2011 she has been un­able to ob­tain em­ploy­ment with the ex­cep­tion of a two-month stint at a pri­vate com­pa­ny. She al­so claimed that her de­ci­sion to re­main silent on her con­tro­ver­sial ap­point­ment was be­cause she re­sumed her life as a pri­vate cit­i­zen.

Tim de­nies hir­ing Shashi: "It's a lie"

Ques­tioned on whether Ram­nar­ine was con­tract­ed as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist at his min­istry, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh replied: "It's a lie." "The Ho­n­ourable MP for Diego Mar­tin West has made false, mis­lead­ing state­ments in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives stat­ing that the per­son is work­ing in the min­istry. I saw the re­port to­day and it is a lie. It is a ma­li­cious lie and shame­ful that any­one did not see it fit to call me to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion. I want to make it cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly clear that no­body by the name of Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine or Shashi Rehka works in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. It is mis­chie­vous­ness and wicked­ness," Gopeesingh said.