A Cabinet shuffle that wounded Jamaica
IT took me two days for the foolishness that Prime Minister Holness did last Monday to sink in.
And even at this point, I am hoping that someone will step forward and say, it was all a dream.
I even had to ask myself whether or not the prime minister’s action was not equivalent to him offering the people of this country a certain finger like his colleague Everald Warmington did, and saying alongside it, ‘I run things. Oonu caa chat to me.’
The Cabinet shuffle (not reshuffle as some people have been describing it) was a flop. Many of the Jamaica Labour Party people that the prime minister leads have also expressed that view to me.
Any Cabinet shuffle must involve shaking up Jamaica’s two main challenges – health care, and national security. Is the prime minister too blind to see that he continues to have the worst health minister in Jamaica’s history in charge of that important assignment? How could there have been a shuffle and Christopher Tufton is not shifted from health? Were big business and other powerful interests at work in this determination?
And as for security, instead of placing more emphasis on the lead challenge, it has now been diluted to one Cabinet minister, down from two, yet, crime continues to rage like a tiger without food for several days, and ‘experts’ continue to think that the size of the police force is the real problem.
There are some people who won in last Monday’s poker game, among them Audley Shaw, who has moved on from being saddled with too many portfolio responsibilities, to transport and mining; Pearnel Charles Jr, whose move to agriculture and fisheries is a major one, as Jamaica needs someone to drive that area of its development to meaningful levels, pushing Jamaica’s contribution from the sector to at least 15 per cent of gross domestic product, instead of a ministry that he once held that was woefully underfunded; Robert Morgan, a minister without portfolio, who will likely be fully in charge of information, though he has some kinks, including an oversized ego to iron out; and the return of Floyd Green, albeit to an assignment that he could find confusing as the days tick off.
The prime minister’s insistence on giving Aubyn Hill something to do – this time at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Investment – could backfire. Be warned: Do not expect much positives in that area from the individual now in charge.
Teachers have complained to me that Education Minister Fayval Williams should be moved, but in fairness to her, what is really clogging the veins of education in an atmosphere of COVID-19 challenges, is connectivity – the inefficiency of Internet suppliers. Even if all students and pupils get devices – laptops, tablets, phones, etc, what can they achieve without adequate Internet supply?
There has still been no improvement by the providers, so the greater part of Mrs Williams’ job will remain under the spotlight until that is rectified, or faceto-face school is back to where it was in March 2020. Even then, she could easily have fitted into the ministry that Hill has been shifted to, as one who has a strong business and finance background, having worked on Wall Street.
As for the others, if I were in Bobby Montague’s shoes I would be hopping mad that I was shifted to the non-existent Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, to be in charge, I am told, of housing and urban renewal. Now, anyone who gets the housing portfolio and does not have the National Housing Trust under his control is wasting his time in that office.
Holness saved this country from a bungling attorney general in Marlene Malahoo Forte, but will the lady be able to guide the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs into swimmable waters, or will it have to be subsumed into the Ministry of Justice, as it ought to have been?
And what about the finance minister’s role? Can we say ‘job well done’ as far as he is concerned, when the Jamaica dollar is sliding all over the place and is at its lowest value against all of the major trading currencies? The domino effect of that drunken dollar can be crippling, and it will be interesting to see how the economy will stand up six months from now. I do not believe that efforts are being made to ensure that the Jamaica dollar can wake up from the coma that it finds itself in.
Naturally, more can be said, but the prime minister has also suggested that there is more to come. Maybe by next time we will see an almost completely new slate of members of the Executive.