Even Banks Beer, it seems, has found that a deputy is essential.
Unable to be all beers to all beer drinkers and having to focus on keeping its dominant position in the premium market against Stag and Heineken, the local brew recently found itself taking on a third contender.
Hairoun. The Vincentian beer, apparently priced to move quickly out of the coolers and off the shelves, has been creating a mini-Vincy volcanic eruption on the island, and Banks found itself unable to take on the two premium beers as well as the upstart lower priced newcomer at the same time.
A deputy had become essential. Marshall Dillon needed Chester, didn’t he?
I am not sure how much was spent on focus groups or in randomly juggling letters of the alphabet to come up with the new name, but – surprise! – the name chosen was, well, Deputy.
The Deputy has been sent out to round up the straying beer drinkers whose champagne tastes but mauby pockets pre-qualify them for what is a lighter – or shall we say, less full-bodied beer – according to an expert.
In local politics we have seen the emergence of the deputy in the form of a Finance Minister separate from the prime minister. This administration split the formerly – but not formally – dual post into two.
As far as I remember, only the late Messrs David Thompson himself and Dr Richie Haynes had ever held the FIinance Minister job separate to the Prime Minister before now.
So, in my informal political lingo, Mr Sinckler deputizes for the PM on matters of finance. This is usually because the latter mostly follows a self-imposed code of silence on the matter.
Of late, however, a second “deputy” seems to have emerged, in the form of Minister of Industry Donville Inniss.
My major criterion for calling a minister a “deputy”, as opposed to being just another minister outlining government policy, is when they seem to be making policy themselves with or without the knowledge of the Prime Minister.
So with the Minister of Finance we hear lots of policies first, and then find that they may simply not find their way into legislation, that is, be ignored or worse, gently rebuffed by the Prime Minister.
In the case of Mr Inniss, I have noted before that he seems to be on a special wavelength with the private sector. To borrow from a popular song, “he says all the right things at exactly the right time,” but often they don’t seem to mesh wholly with the policy, or lack thereof, coming out of the two major offices on Bay Street.
Last week, the man with the golden voice was at it again.
The private and public sectors would get on so much better if there were a “better understanding of the roles on each side,” he said at the function to open Super Centre Warrens’ new combo store.
The island’s systems and institutions needed reorganization, the goal being more customer-focus and better cost controls (I am paraphrasing the WEEKEND NATION’s paraphrase on Page 24 last Friday). This would include how people were appointed and promoted in both sectors.
And then he said (same source): “It may mean having to take a hard look at some of our key institutions like the Port Authority, the Water Authority and several others and how they function. How can we make them more efficient?”
He added, and this is the jaw-dropping part: “It may mean having to engage in some rather robust debates with our workers’ representatives and helping to pull them well into the 21st century regardless of their threats.”
And to balance it off, he added, jabbing at the private sector: “It may mean a more enlightened management in some key areas.”
Now let me close by asking you this: If Deputy No. 1 can’t even get Government workers whose temporary jobs had expired taken off the payroll, what expectation should Deputy No. 2 have of taking on the unions in a core philosophical debate in order to escort them into the present century?
By the way, did you notice that when Deputy No. 1 says something, Deputy No. 2 may walk it back (as with the garbage tax), but when the opposite occurs, there is silence on Bay Street? Is there a message in that?
I have therefore come to the conclusion that while two deputies may be essential, they may not necessarily have to see eye to eye. Or even talk to each other in public.
• Pat Hoyos is a publisher and business writer.
