And while Jose Mai takes what the PM insists is leave for a bad back, we also asked him about the other Minister who left a portfolio behind.
Not long after the PM announced Henry Charles Usher would be taking over from Kareem Musa at the Ministry of Home Affairs, reports emerged that he had rejected the portfolio. On the surface, it seemed like public disrespect towards Briceno by one of his Cabinet members. But the PM told us today: that's not the case. He says Usher simply asked to retain Public Service because he has ongoing projects he wants to complete. Here's how he put it.
Jules Vasquez
"But it doesn't look good for a leader to be rejected by one of his members in an important portfolio assignment."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"But again, and this is where and sometimes I have a problem with you, where you make these comments without really getting the right information."
"I did meet with Minister Usher, and I presented him the portfolio of Home Affairs and Enterprise. And initially, he immediately said, you know, I have some big issues going on in the public service that I still want to work on, and I wonder if whosoever you're going to put there will be able to continue to address those issues."
"So there's a number of huge initiatives that he wanted to take in place. So he came back and said, would you reconsider? I would rather see where I am. And then I said, fine, certainly I'll give it a consideration."
"So as to where you get these later, he came back, there's no such thing."
Jules Vasquez
"But shouldn't that have been worked out before an announcement was made? PM I have been observing politics for a long time. I've never seen a minister hand back a ministry. Yes, it may happen in the meeting that a minister says, PM I can't handle that. But for an announcement to be made, and then for the minister to days later say, I won't take it. I've never seen that before, sir."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Again, we all have different styles of governing, and I try to be a consensus builder. And yes, I could have taken a hard line, but where does that put me? Minister Usher has been the chairman of the party from 2010."
"And when he came back and explained to me what he, how he felt, I think I should be able to give it to him, to listen to him being a senior minister. If I wanted to be hardline, I could have said, well, too bad, so sad. We've already agreed."
"But it's best that we try to have consensus and for us to be able to work together. And to me, that is more important than anything else. Whatever stories you may put to make your news for your ratings, and that's okay."
"I know better, and I feel that we have a much better working relationship within cabinet at this moment."
