.png)
All Gov’t Ministers to serve as Deputy Premier; Dr Wheatley appointed first
During a swearing-in ceremony today in the presence of his Excellency, Governor Augustus J. U. Jaspert, Dr Wheatley swore alliance to the crown before being made official to execute in the office of Deputy Premier for a period of three months effective March 6, 2019.
Unconventional
Speaking briefly at the ceremony, Premier Fahie said, “I want to congratulate Natalio Wheatley at this time, I want to thank the governor also for allowing us to follow through in this area of the constitution which is unconventional, but we have Ministers with great ability and great potential and we want to make sure that your government is involved in capacity building.”
Hon Fahie continued, “Every three months for the first year, each minister will be given the opportunity to serve in the post of deputy premier and after the first year, then someone will be named permanently to the post,” he said.
Experience
According to Hon Fahie, the decision to appoint ministers on a rotational basis allows for each minister to get the experience and develop in areas they might never have the opportunity to see.
.png)
Follow Us On
23 Responses to “All Gov’t Ministers to serve as Deputy Premier; Dr Wheatley appointed first ”
This got to be a joke. What kind of experience will this man gain in the 3 months assigned?
We are at a crucial state in the territory and it may require the Premier to travel with more than one of the ministers on official business overseas and as such someone of the ministers must act in that position. Those who are negative and are unaware of the functions of a government will want to criticize this move. However, Jesus was criticized and crucified so Hon Fahie move on and take the territory in a better position.
This plan would yield better results if the Deputy Premier position had higher level specific duties(now it looks more like a title than anything else). In perusing the government organizational chart, the Deputy Premier is not even on it. Further, it is also my understanding that other ministers report directly to the Premier, not the designated Deputy Premier. True, someone must be designated to act as Premier when the Premier is out of the country or is otherwise not available for other reasons. The Premier should make the tough call and designate someone as Deputy Premier; it will be a long and stressful 4 years if try to make decisions that attains satisfy a 100% of the people. This rarely if ever happens. However, if the Honorable Fahie wants to share the wealth of the Deputy Premier title, he can rotate his primary ministers in 9-12 month increments. Experience gain in 3 months is probably marginal at best. The experience gain in 3 months will be if a crisis occured within that time frame and the Premier was out of pocket.
Moreover, if the Premier wants ministers to gain experience from the Deputy Premier position, the position’s roles and responsibilities should be restructured. Further, for more cross functional training for ministers, at strategic points, rotate ministers in and out of ministries. The territory is faced with a myriad of challenging problems so the Premier should not be indecisive but brave about the minor details. In my view, the Deputy Premier issue would have been a settled issue before the election. Furthermore, it should have been be a settled issue before who is going to be Premier and Deputy before the election. Nonetheless, let’s avoid paralysis by over analysis. There is too much to do.
Congrats to Dr. Hon Deputy Premier to Natalio Wheatley!
1