Government backbencher issues caution on senior ministers posts

Lawmakers on Friday approved provisions for four senior ministerial positions in the Cabinet, but a Government backbencher made it clear she was not “enamoured” by the new posts.

Although voicing her support for the coordinating roles of the new senior ministers, former Minister for Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle cautioned the Mia Mottley administration against “throwing people at a problem”.

Speaking on a resolution to approve the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Remuneration and Allowance Order), 2022 during Friday’s sitting of the House of Assembly, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of Government Business Santia Bradshaw contended the appointments would significantly strengthen Government’s ability to deliver on its promises.

Following her Barbados Labour Party’s second consecutive clean sweep in the January 19, 2022 polls, Prime Minister Mia Mottley downsized her Cabinet and announced the appointment of Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw with coordinating responsibility as a senior minister for Infrastructure; Attorney General Dale Marshall as Senior Minister coordinating for Governance in Cabinet; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Dr. The Most Honourable Jerome Walcott as senior minister coordinating for all Social and Environmental Policy and Minister of Energy and Business Development Kerrie Symmonds as senior minister coordinating the Productive Sectors.

Bradshaw told the House that with the appointments, Government intends to “drill down to where the bottlenecks are within Government and to work collectively and assiduously to ensure we are able to carry out the mandate of this current administration”.

“We have had to reorganise how the Cabinet works, and certainly senior ministers are now to come to work to address the affairs of the country . . . because there is a recognition there we have to be more clinical in the approach to the affairs of Government and it is therefore not business as usual,” Bradshaw said.

“To those who believe the [previous] Cabinet was too large . . . we continue to justify that it was necessary at the time because of the magnitude of the work that had to be done. Now we have come again to Government and basically revisited that initial position, but said simply that we need to have another level of ministers along with the deputy prime minister being in a position to be able to hold other ministries to account, to be able to share some of the work with the honourable Prime Minister in being able to execute the mandate of this administration,” she added.

The Deputy Prime Minister disclosed that the senior ministers have already started meetings on the priorities for each ministry and ministers and public servants are being held accountable for executing the Government’s agenda.

However, Caddle suggested the administration look beyond individual roles.

“I think we have to get past the notion that if there is something to fix, you identify that person and you assign a person to fix it,” she said.

She advised that the real function of coordination must happen at the level of the ministries and departments, while stressing that effective systems must be in place.

“Are we really measuring the impact on people’s lives? I find myself having to caution us all that simply having an individual, a role, a function that is called senior minister might be a necessary condition but it certainly is not sufficient.

And we need to be able to move to the place where we have coordinating systems, including data sharing across ministries, including making sure that when we leave meetings work is being done. Because, with all due respect, with the systems of government that we have come to know, a meeting is not a result and a meeting is not a management function because when you leave those meetings, somebody has to go back and do some work that is actually going to make a difference in somebody’s life.

“I support the areas that have been identified for coordination, so forgive me if I am not enamoured of the senior minister notion. I am more enamoured of the function of coordination that really has to happen at the level of the ministry,” the Member of Parliament for St Michael South Central MP added.

Under the remuneration and allowances of ministers and parliamentary secretaries outlined in the resolution, the Deputy Prime Minister’s and the Senior Ministers’ annual salary amounts to $181,345.88 annually. Additionally, entertainment allowance is $37,372.56 and travel allowance, $32,586.00.

Other ministers earn $160,000.10 per year with an entertainment allowance of $24,170.28 and another $23,777.92 allotted for travel allowance.
(SD)