Turning back now to our interview with Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie, this morning, he took on questions about the Geovannie Brackett employment contract.
As viewers are aware, that internal memo that detailed Brackett's employment terms was written by Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, and it was addressed to Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie.
It said, quote, "Approval is given for the contractual employment of Mr. Geovannie Brackett as Information Consultant, Government Press Office, Office of the Prime Minister for a period of two years, with effect from February 1, 2022. Mr. Brackett will be paid a salary at a fixed rate of forty-two thousand dollars per annum, and 10% gratuity at the end of the contract period, and a telephone allowance at a rate of 125 dollars per month." End quote.
Today, the Cabinet Secretary took the opportunity to explain the rationale behind this decision. Here are those comments:
Ambassador Stuart Leslie - Cabinet Secretary
"I was kind of surprised when I found out that the fraternity that Giovanni came from, meaning your fraternity, journalists, were questioning so arduously this decision because he's one of you. In fact, I think he worked at Channel Seven for a while and helped out in other media. And I would have thought that you would have been happy to see one of your own get such a contract If you listen to speeches that were given by people like Minister Musa, Prime Minister, Minister Fonseca, you will hear about this concept that we are trying to do as this whole-of-government approach to key issues, especially some of the social issues. I think Giovanni is very qualified and very experienced through his advocacy work in working with some of these social issues. Now, the press office can't handle everything. There have to be certain consultancies that the press office will hand out, consultancies that deal with some of these social issues. I can tell you for a fact that Geovannie reports to me as well as to others, that he does a lot of groundwork dealing with at-risk youth, with mothers who have families who've suffered death because of their son's being murdered and so on. In fact, Giovannie sits on the Board of Directors in the Ministry of Human Development, I think, on women's issues. So, he has been working on doing things quietly, and not making a lot of noise. But if this government is going to be a government that listens, then we have to hear what other people out there are saying, not just the leaders and the political people that work every day together, but from activists like Giovanni and others. I want to say one more thing also. That generation of people, of great Belizeans that have worked hard, like somebody like Nuri Mohammed, like James Murphy, who worked in the area of developing strategies to deal with that with young people at risk. Those guys are not as young as they used to be. We need to develop another generation of people who can listen and can talk. So, this is what we were thinking about when we reached out to Giovannie to ask him to come and work for us. Now, with respect to the salary, guys, listen, this is a two-year consultancy contract. Nobody knows what will happen at the end of two years. Giovannie will not get any massive - he doesn't have any benefits that he can look forward to after that or any of those things. And yes, there are public officers who may say, well, we earn less, but those established public officers can look forward to pensions, and they can look forward to gratuities and other things that Mr. Bracket will not be able to look forward to. And so, I support this initiative by the Prime Minister, the Office of the Prime Minister, to work with Giovannie. And I hope that good things will come from it. In fact, I believe it's a really rearing good fruit."
