Sylvestre, Andrews, Gutierrez Switch Posts at Foreign Affairs

Patrick Andrews

There has been a reshuffle of top posts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Three top diplomats are playing “musical chairs” in the wake of the retirement of chief executive officer Lawrence Sylvestre. Sylvestre is on pre-retirement leave, but he will be named Ambassador to CARICOM, replacing Daniel Gutierrez.  Gutierrez takes up the post of Ambassador of Belize to the United States of America, based in Washington. He succeeds Patrick Andrews, who comes home to take Sylvestre’s former post as C.E.O.  Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wilfred Elrington, details the reasons for the changes.

Wilfred Elrington

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“C.E.O. Sylvestre proceeded on pre-retirement leave on the fifteenth of May of this year. The designate to replace him is our Ambassador, Pat Andrews, who is presently ambassador to Washington, but desperately desires to come home – he doesn’t want to be out of Belize at all, he seems to have gotten enough of being abroad. And he wants to come home, and I personally thought that he would be a perfect fit as C.E.O. for the Ministry, because of his very many years of experience in the private sector, and I think that he would be able to do some shuffling in the Ministry that would result in even better service to the nation and to the people – enhance the service. So we have tapped him for that position and then we have tapped Ambassador [Daniel] Gutierrez to replace him in Washington; and then we are proposing to re-hire Ambassador Sylvestre and have him become the Ambassador to CARICOM, among other things.”

According to Elrington, the practice of having Ambassadors confirmed by the Senate has been discontinued and these appointments are decided on internally.