And, turning now from all that crime news...
On Friday you saw our exclusive interview with Dr. Carla Barnett - on her last day as Minister of Natural Resources. Today she took over the Ministry of Labour, Local Government and Rural Development - which is a long way down the ladder on the governmental power structure. But, on Friday, Barnett confirmed what was stated in the press release about the Cabinet shuffle: she asked to be moved. We asked why:...
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"A press release with this strange phrasing "after a request by Dr. Carla Barnett.."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Which is true and it wasn't the first request."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Who makes such a request?"
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Me."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Were you under pressure to do it?"
Dr. Carla Barnett
"No."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"There are many kinds of ways that you can apply. You can put someone under pressure. There is a direct way of just pressurizing them or there is an indirect way where you can for example pressurize their boss or somebody can complain about you and I know that they did complain about you to the prime minister."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Yes, they complain to the prime minister, member of the public complain to everybody. If you listen to the radio in the morning it is a ministry that for many years has been the focus of a lot of complaints."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"However, would you agree that there are those in the cabinet who wanted you out Carla."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Nobody told me that."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"But they told the prime minister."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"But at the end of the day, always remember and I have said this to prime minister many times. At the end of the day it is his decision to make. So even when on an earlier occasion I had gone to him and said you know whenever you think... he had said no we want you there. I stayed. It is his call as the prime minister. Constitionally it is his choice. If he says stay, I would have probably stayed a little bit longer. I don't know, but I think it was time to move."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Minister Elrington introduced a new narrative, but just a counter narrative. Because the official line was you requested to leave and you have confirmed that. But then he introduced almost a counter narrative by saying you know there were a lot of administrative bottlenecks..."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Which I met when I came and which we were working to fix. But if you know the ship of the public service is difficult to turn. So we met those bottlenecks and we are working to try and make the processes smoother, but it is very difficult. I will be the first to admit that."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"So you feel that in that regard you came up short?"
Dr. Carla Barnett
"If by coming up short, you mean I did not perform a miracle? Yeah."
And while Dr. Barnett said she couldn't perform miracles - her critics might say that the movement of land transactions may have even slowed down during her tenure. We asked her about that too:..
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Here comes Dr. Carla Barnett, this vaunted figure of over standing the macro issues that inhibit development and economic growth and here you are now at the headwaters of inefficiency when land can't move the economy..."
Dr. Carla Barnett
"Does not move and in deed Jules, that's one of the messages I always try to conveyed to staff, that if there are uncertainties about the validity for example of a title. You are introducing uncertainty not only about the title, but that person might have a difficultly getting a loan to do business and when we take a long time to deliver somebody's title to them, then we are keeping back the economy. We are keeping back finance, we are keeping back the kind of activities that we do need for the country to develop and so that was always a big concern for me."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"And you couldn't fix it?"
Dr. Carla Barnett
"No, I couldn't fixed it. We improved it I think. By the end of next week we ought to have cleared the back log in the registry, so people ought to be able to get everything out of registry that's been in the registry, some of them for a year to year and a half. There is an expectation that we should see the system move faster. We have been making changes here that should allow the system to move faster."
