THE CABINET RESHUFFLE

Jan 16, 2017 Editorial

The New Year saw the first major reshuffle of the cabinet which led to the demotion of the Minister of Health and the promotion of the Ministers of Social Protection and Social Cohesion.
The reshuffle came in the wake of mismanagement in the Ministry of Health, such as the drug bond scandal, shortage of drugs at the public hospitals, the misleading of Parliament on the drug bond contract by the Minister of Health, and the ordered release of food products by the Minister, which the Guyana Food and Drug Administration had deemed unfit for consumption.
While some supported the reshuffling of the cabinet, others believe the country’s population is too small to have 28 ministers.
They viewed the political framework and structural organization of the administration as being flawed. The cabinet should have been downsized, and be more efficient in order to meet the needs of the people, and ease the financial burden on the taxpayers.
Cabinet reshuffles are rare in Guyana. Few took place during the last fifteen years. Reshuffling of the cabinet should reassure the nation that the government is serious about managing the affairs of the country in light of the institutional challenges and the decaying infrastructure inherited from the last administration. However, many felt that transferring the Minister to the Ministry of Social Cohesion was not enough.
In the past few months, the Minister of Health was severely criticized by the media and the public for the controversial drug bond deal, and for misleading the National Assembly that the bond was completed and that drugs were stored in it. He subsequently apologized for misleading the House and the matter was placed in front of the Committee of Privileges where he is expected to be disciplined.
The drug bond issue did not end there. During the consideration of the 2017 budget estimates, it caused a commotion in Parliament, when the Minister of Health informed the House that drugs were stored in the bond. The opposition denounced his claim.
This led the Speaker of the House to dispatch two members of Parliament from each side of the isle to the bond site, where they found that not a single tablet was stored there and many of the cold storage facilities have still not been properly utilized. So, once again, the Minister has misled the House.
The Minister of Health was also at the center of another controversy when he allegedly ordered the release of large consignment of foods which the Food and Drug Administration had declared unfit for human consumption. He was widely criticized by the media, the public and several groups for his callous actions.
However, the new Minister of Health is no stranger to controversy either. During the local government elections held in March, she supported a controversial individual who contested and won his constituency. She was also quoted as saying that child molestation is a family issue.
This sparked outrage by rights groups who protested in front of her ministry. Also a Commission of Inquiry (COI) was appointed to investigate the deaths of Anthony and Joshua George, who perished in a fire at the government drop-in center on Hadfield Street in July 2016. The COI found that there was dereliction of duty on the part of senior officials at the Ministry of Social Protection.
Reshuffling the cabinet should help to reduce the dysfunctionality, inefficiency and in some cases, the outright failure at the many layers of the government.
However, the transferring of the Minister of Health to the Ministry of Social Cohesion which he knows absolutely nothing about is not only a waste of the taxpayers’ money, which the country can ill afford, but it is being viewed by many as transferring incompetence from one ministry to another.