CHRIS SINCKLER, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, may well have been the most “controversial person” in Barbados for 2013 – as noted last Sunday by my professional colleague, Albert Branford. But Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, now seems quite anxious to earn the reputation as Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s most “provocative” cabinet minister.
While his penchant for media coverage, enabled by seemingly well-placed contacts, was apparent when he served as Minister of Health, amid recurring controversies during the DLP’s first term, it is in his current ministerial position in the party’s second term that Mr Inniss appears anxious to underscore his capacity for engaging in open political warfare. Even, if it causes more than passing embarrassment for the head of government – Prime Minister Freundel Stuart.
The latest example was his surprising chastisement last Monday of public sector employees and their representative body, National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), telling them if they were not willing to work and help steer Barbados out of its pressing economic problems, they should “go home” (DAILY NATION, Dec. 31).
It is not Mr Inniss’ right to express whatever views he may wish to publicly express that is of concern to many out there, apart from this columnist. It is his quite surprising failure to reflect understanding of the functioning of the Government of which he is one of some 15 cabinet ministers and headed by a Prime Minister whose own portfolio responsibilities include the “public service”.
It is the Prime Minister who had initiated consultation with the NUPW, following the shock announcement by Finance Minister Sinckler last month that some 3 000 public sector workers face retrenchment within the first quarter of this year.
And it was to the Prime Minister that the NUPW had submitted for consideration a set of proposals to avoid that huge dismissal of workers.
In his wisdom as head of government, whose responsibilities include the Public Service and, consequently current negotiator with the NUPW, Mr Stuart is yet to make a response to the union’s submission. He has been keeping his public silence as well as timing also his coming cabinet reshuffle that could coincide with next month DLP’s first year second term anniversary.
Further, while his portfolio does not include either information and communication, education, the police service nor administration of justice, Minister Inniss felt constrained to launch a blistering verbal attack against the widely respected and influential Jamaica Gleaner last November 17 for its editorial support of the Nation Publishing Co. Limited with respect to its coverage of a news story involving an apparent sexual connection between two unnamed and unidentified secondary school students.
This matter is currently before the court and, therefore, no comment will be offered in this column at this time on what Mr Inniss had to say against the Gleaner on November 17 when he used as his platform a monthly meeting of his DLP constituency branch. For now, we await whatever official response there may be, to Mr Inniss’ surprising salvos.
•? Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist. Email [email protected].
