7NEWS reported it two weeks ago, and government made it official today: Financial Secretary Hugh McSweaney is being made to move over to make room for Dr. Carla Barnett.
As government's top moneyman for the past three years, McSweaney was responsible for managing much of the policies of the Fonseca financial regime, which with the present difficulties, has fallen out of favor. But even though he may have been the chief contractor for the man the G7 singled out as the architect of ruin, there's still a place for McSweaney in the Ministry of Finance.
McSweaney will now work as the special advisor to the Minister of Finance; overseeing the Smartstream computer management system he helped implement, and continuing to oversee the management audit of government's accounts. Joining him as in an advisory post is another former Financial Secretary Joe Waight. Waight was relegated to the Ministry of Education in the year 2000. Dr. Carla Barnett who has a background at the Central Bank now assumed the "fin sec" post in what is widely believed the be the most daunting fiscal crisis Belize has faced in 20 years.