P.M.: Cabinet changes will improve government
While the recent changes in Cabinet may have the appearance of a game of musical chairs, for Prime Minister Said Musa, they are the logical product of a desire to improve his government’s performance. This afternoon the P.M. explained to me just what was behind his decision.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“I saw the need, as I do every year quite frankly, to do a re-examination of the performance of my government. And I felt that there was need to bring about changes for more effective governance. And I believe that this will achieve that.”
Janelle Chanona
“In your rebuttal to characterisation of Joe Coye as one of the losers in this Cabinet reshuffle you made mention of his accounting skills and credit him with being able to handle multi-million dollar projects and so forth, many would say maybe then why not give him finance?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well, the short answer to that is I believe the presence Minister of Finance, Ralph Fonseca, has been doing an effective job, so I saw no need to change him. And I felt the need as well to greater utilize the skills of Jose Coye, and I feel that that can best be accomplished in the Ministry of Works. People, certainly certain sections of the press have tried to make out as if those this is a downgrading for Jose when the simply truth is that the Ministry of Works is a bigger and much more demanding ministry than the Ministry of Health. You would have thought they would have said what happen to poor Vildo, he was the Minister of Works and he has lost that. But no, it’s designed towards bringing in somebody fresh, with energy to carry out the policies of this government in the Ministry of Health. And with Jose Coye there at the Ministry of Work, I believe again it will lead to more effective governance.”
Janelle Chanona
“Now, your office issued a release today stating there would be a committee formed to do a managerial audit of Government. Is that code to say that Government is intending to streamline its operations, job cuts maybe, and I hate to use the word but retrenchment, but…”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Let me use it and say there is no intention for any retrenchment. That is not the purpose of a management audit. The purpose is to find out in each and every unit, department, and ministry of government whether the people who are deployed in those sections are doing their job, exactly what they are doing, what is their mission, are they aware of it, and is that work being carried out effectively. It’s not good enough just to do a shake up of the Cabinet. We are just the policy-makers; the implementers are the public officers. We have to rely on them to carry out the programmes of government. And I saw the need at this time, we’ve gone through one full term of government, we’re now in the second term, and there is a need to do this management audit, again, to bring about more effective governance. In others words, you may find that there are too many people in this section, some of them just sitting behind a desk or just using the phone for their own private business when they could be deployed and put to work in another section. It’s like in any organisation, business corporation or in government, you need to do this from time to time.”
Janelle Chanona
“And this is coming from your own initiative of having this renewed energy and kinda vitalising the government, or are other players asking Belize to do this, the I.M.F., the World Bank?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Not at all, the I.M.F. hasn’t even raised that issue with me or the World Bank for that matter. I have done a lot of soul searching and reflection over the Christmas holidays and I saw the need for this, and that’s why we are going to do it.”
“It’s a new government in many respects and certainly I would call on the Belizean people to realise that they are the government too. We can’t do it alone, the people in Belmopan or the people in the offices in the districts. This business has to do with motivating people, getting the job done in an effective way. And the only way we can do that is if people are onboard and they see where we are going. First of all, we know where we are. We know we face many difficulties, but if we have a clear vision and we are onboard with the programme to move ahead, I believe that’s how Belize will move to even greater prosperity. And not just prosperity in the sense of wealth for its own sake, but the kind of contentment that comes when you can show that people are benefiting from this economic growth.”
The only ministers unaffected by the Cabinet shuffle are Johnny Briceño, Ralph Fonseca, and Servulo Baeza.
