Today there was dead calm in Belmopan, as the seat of government power recovered from a week of heavy "warming". It was quiet on all fronts as the surrendered but not sundered G7 gathered for an afternoon meeting in the city, and the much pilloried former Finance Minister Hon. Ralph Fonseca was out of his Belmopan office. It seems everyone is still trying to come to terms with the changes announced yesterday evening by the Prime minister.
As we reported, it is more a restructuring than a shuffle, where the Cabinet is expanded to 16 members, the largest number ever in a Musa administration. The biggest change is for Ralph Fonseca, who loses Ministry of Finance, but takes over the Ministry of Investment which controls BELTRAIDE and, consequentially, the approval of development concessions. Prime Minister Said Musa takes over that Ministry of Finance as he did from 1998 to 2003 but does so now with two watchdog Ministers of State Johnny Briceno and Joe Coye.
And while the G7 got most of what it wanted with the partial stripping of Ralph Fonseca, to get it done, Eamon Courtenay had to play sacrificial lamb and give up the Attorney General's ministry, which is taken over by Francis Fonseca. For giving up investment, Mark Espat takes over the deeply dubious and hitherto unheard of Ministry of Enterprise. Another G7 member Godfrey Smith loses the Ministry of Defense, to the Prime Minister. For his role in the G7's mini coup, Servulo Baeza loses the Ministry of Fisheries and Cooperatives, which he gives up to long time backbencher, Mike Espat. Another backbencher, Ainslie Leslie becomes a first time minister with the energy and communications portfolios, which he gets from Vildo Marin, who gives that up to take over Briceno's Ministry of the Environment.
And joining the Cabinet formally will be a man who was, perhaps illegally, sworn in as a Minister without portfolio at the start of this term, Assad Shoman. Presumably, Shoman will now be brought in through the Senate to take over the Ministry of National Development from Said Musa. With that inclusion Musa buffers himself with a formidable ally in the Cabinet, and widens the Cabinet to dilute the power of the G7, which is now less than half of the sworn members. It also neutralizes them because their relative power is less, and Musa and his Cabinet allies, have taken over control of the police, the judiciary and the military.