The recent shuffle of Cabinet shows Prime Minister Perry Christie’s “ignorance of, or lack of concern for, the significant and recurrent costs associated with the creation of new ministries”, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said in a statement yesterday.
The FNM leader called Prime Minister Perry Christie’s cabinet shuffle nothing more than an “anti-climactic” game of “musical chairs” used to “praise nonperformance and to reward incompetence.”
Mr lngraham said the shuffle appears to be as a result of negotiations between the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues rather than a reflection of any focused plan by the prime minister to shape and drive the last 15 months leading up to the next general elections.
The FNM leader said that as a result of the shuffle the Bahamian people must deal with the peculiar reality of a ministry responsible for energy and the environment which includes redevelopment of Nassau, but excludes responsibility for water; a concoction which joins youth and sports to housing; another which marries local government and consumer affairs; still another which adds foreign trade to the portfolio of a Minister who has never heard of an international meeting or conference at which his presence is not required, and finally, a further burdened portfolio for a prime minister with no affinity for decision-making.
“Moreover, after nearly four years the prime minister has continued in his new portfolio allocations a peculiar fiction assigning portfolio responsibility for financial services and investments to a Minister notwithstanding the fact that legislative authority for those areas rests elsewhere – in the office of the prime minister and with the Minister of Finance,” Mr Ingraham said.
The opposition party leader said that the shuffling of portfolios among the “same men and women who have not delivered in nearly four years is of small comfort to the people of the Bahamas.”
The statement comes as another episode in a series of acidic exchanges between the two men which began after Mr. Christie strongly criticised Mr. Ingraham for his absence during the Speech from the Throne last Wednesday, calling it “a total disrespect and contempt not just for parliament but for the people.”
Mr Ingraham responded to Mr Christie’s statements on Sunday by accusing him of making a “mean-spirited and unparliamentary diatribe” against him and “spewing misinformation.”
Government officials yesterday dismissed the former prime minister’s assertions.
“If this is all that the man who appointed what became known as a ‘Gussie Mae’ cabinet has to say, then I guess we are doing pretty well. It seems to be an uncharacteristically tepid response.”
Now, Mr Ingraham said that while every prime minister has the right to appoint and to change cabinet ministers at his or her pleasure, Mr Christie has repeatedly said that he was more than happy with the performance of his ministers and his announcement last evening demonstrates that he remains of that view.
“The new portfolio assignments appear to be little more than musical chair adjustments, the result of negotiations between the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues rather than a reflection of any focused plan by the prime minister to shape and drive the last 15 months left in his single term in office. They also betray the Prime Minister’s ignorance of, or lack of concern for, the significant and recurrent costs associated with the creation of new ministries,” Mr Ingraham said.
The former prime minister said that the Cabinet already comprised 16 ministries, including one vacancy the result of the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Education sharing a Minister for nearly four years.
He said that a strategic realignment of responsibilities and the posting of full time Ministers at each of these two Ministries would have created the opportunity for the appointment of a new Minister without the added administrative costs of a 17th ministry.
“Regrettably, such a scenario eluded the prime minister who also failed to muster the courage to dismiss ineffectual ministers. Instead he used the opportunity of his cabinet shutfle to praise non-performance and to reward incompetence,” the FNM leader said.
By RUPERT MISSICK Jr Chief Reporter
