People’s United Party Unveils Shadow Cabinet at Party Council Meeting
Saturday’s National Party Council meeting of the People’s United Party in Belize City was more of a celebration of the party’s sixty-sixth anniversary of formation in 1950. But there was one major item of importance on the agenda. That is the formation of a “Shadow Cabinet” – a group of party spokespersons that will closely follow goings-on in the official government ministries and keeps the party and the nation abreast of major developments. At Independence Hall today, P.U.P. leader John Briceño detailed the duties of the fifteen parliamentarians appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.
John Briceño
John Briceño, P.U.P. Leader
“The Shadow Cabinet basically is to be able to look at every single ministry in the government and to see the work that they are doing. The people that we have appointed are all parliamentarians—all fifteen of them with the exception of one, Francis Fonseca decided that he is prepared to assist the fourteen of us so he did not take any specific task. But the idea behind this is that one, this person is going to be the spokesperson for the party; secondly, they will be looking very closely at what is taking place in the ministry that they have been assigned to follow; thirdly, they need to build relationship within that ministry…to find out what are the issues, what policies they are presenting and so forth. Fourthly, they will also need to be able to keep in constant communication with the policy group of the party that is being held by Miss Nardia Garcia and Miss Zoey Zetina. Fifth, that person also has to be in constant communications with the Director of Communications because when we have a rapid response or we have a press release or if they are going to give an interview with the media or be on a talk show; again, we need to make sure that we keep on message. Sixth, we are saying also that they need to keep in touch with the stakeholders to hear from them what are their concerns, how they see things and also for us to be able to articulate the party’s position with them. And seventh, as the party leader, to me it is important that we are not just giving positions just to give positions, but we want to see the people to work. So one of the things that I am asking from them is that every quarter they need to give a written report—not long reports; two three paragraphs—of what are the meetings they had, what are the works that they are doing to keep abreast from everybody.”
Briceño was at pains to point out that the composition does not reflect a future Cabinet for a P.U.P. Government.
