Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has switched some of his Cabinet ministers in an attempt to get the best out of his team.
He told the SATURDAY SUN that his numbers in the current Cabinet were slightly smaller and he therefore needed to deploy his resources as he saw fit while making sure greater effort would come from team members.
Expressing confidence in his 17-member Cabinet, he said: “If you’re going to be building people for higher and better things, they should have as wide an experience as possible,” and noted, as an example, new Minister of Transport and Works Michael Lashley, whom he said had been “an astounding success in the Ministry of Housing”.
“But why would a man want to go into political retirement, when that time comes, remembered only as having spent time at the Ministry of Housing when he can amass a vaster experience, touch more lives in different ways, and prepare himself for higher and better things?” he asked, describing the St Philip North MP as a politician with great potential, an excellent criminal lawyer and a minister with solid administrative and implementation skills.
“I think that having regard to the infrastructural challenges that we have faced in certain parts of St Lucy, for example, in St George certainly and in certain parts of St Philip, not to exclude a lot of the others, that a minister like Michael Lashley will hit the ground running and get some of those challenges wrestled to the ground for us. This is no reflection, of course, on the predecessor Minister of Public Works John Boyce, who also did a very good job during his incumbency,” Stuart explained.
He added that, generally, a Prime Minister had to move his people around to achieve the best results.
The other changes have been Donville Inniss, who was moved from the Ministry of Health to International Business, Commerce and Business Development; Denis Kellman, who has shed the Ministry of Small Business to be Minister of Housing and Lands; and Boyce, who now takes over the health portfolio.
Stuart also said former ministers George Hutson and Haynesley Benn, along with former Deputy Speaker Kenny Best, will be included in his team.
“I have been in touch with all of them and you can be sure that they will be functioning in other capacities. Of course, the number of persons to be appointed to the Senate is limited. I have access to only 12 appointments and I had to look at the resources available and how to use those resources, but Kenny Best, George Hutson and Haynesley Benn have made a significant contribution to the life of the Government between 2008 and the dissolution of Parliament.
“They have a lot more to give and I’ve spoken to all three and given assurances that they’ll be incorporated into the administration performing different functions,” he said. (RJ)