And so today it was announced that Jose Mai's Ministry of Agriculture would be going over to Rodwell Ferguson - who did not have a stellar run the first term; his ministries were dogged by reports of serial maladministration and more than a hint of corrupt activity.
At the start of this second term in March, Ferguson was relegated to being a Minister without portfolio in the Prime Minister's office - basically a nothing post. But now, with Mai's ministry suddenly in play, Ferguson has been given the mantle - kind of like going from training wheels to a Harley Davidson.
We asked the Prime Minister about this odd decision:
Jules Vasquez
"You have brought Rodwell Ferguson back. And indeed you said that he is someone with experience, et cetera. Would you speak about, you know, he is minister in the prime minister's office because, I don't want to be unkind to the gentleman, but his performance at past ministries was not stellar. So you brought him into your ministry which was a neutral post. And now you're putting him back in a very important ministry at a very critical time. Have you run out of options that you need to bring up someone from the corner of the cabinet, so to speak?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"But I think, yes, you are being unkind when you speak about Minister Ferguson, the way you just did. I think that Minister Ferguson, we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Minister Ferguson is a good man."
"And the people of his constituency have elected him from 2003. Yes, he lost in 2008, but since 2012, he has been winning elections after elections by huge margins. We did have some issues, yes, when he was minister."
"And I felt that it's best then to put him in my office so that we could try other people. We do have other people that we could also bring in, but you also need... to me, it's important to have this balance and especially in the south, he being from a rural area. So I believe that Ferguson will be able to do a good job. Now to do better than Minister Mai or Honorable Mai, that's gonna be a tough one for anybody. So let's put that, let's leave that as that."
Later on, we'll ask the PM about who will run the Supplies Control office in the Ministry of agriculture.
