Is the present Cabinet the pick of the crop?

Apr 10, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Recently, there was a highly animated discussion in a popular watering hole in ‘Bam-Bam Alley’. The topic was whether President Granger had a competent team of persons around him, including his Ministers.
The popular consensus was that the PNCR’s extended sabbatical out of government – a period of 23 years – has degutted the party of much of its formidable talent. Since it departed office in 1992, the party would have lost leaders who would have died, gotten older or migrated. The view held overwhelmingly by the group having the discussion, was that President Granger is fielding the PNCR’s weakest team of Ministers, and the poor performance of the substitutes have not made his job any easier.
It is a debatable issue. It is equally debatable whether the past crop of PNCR leaders would have done any better than the present crop. Different periods in a country’s development and different periods in time require different skill sets. Governments today are far more active and dealing with far more complex issues than those in the past.
Regardless of the skill sets which are required today as compared with the past, it is still relevant to question whether the President is surrounded by the best available talents.
Many years ago, this column posed the question: How does one know that a President has surrounded himself with the best? And how does one determine who are the best?
In making this assessment, greater weight is usually given to persons who are lettered – who have qualifications. But do qualifications alone make an effective Minister?
In his later years as President, Burnham chopped and changed his Cabinet, appointing all manner of unlettered persons to his Cabinet. Burnham had to have had some reason for doing this. He may have become extremely frustrated with some of the highly qualified persons in his midst, and may, for the purposes of image, have wanted persons who rubbed shoulders with the common man.
Choosing Ministers is never an easy task. A President often has to balance a number of interests. A President is expected to reward those members of his party who worked hard during election campaigning and who were of long-standing in the party. But he also has to balance this expectation with the need to ensure that the persons chosen have the leadership and technical knowledge for the jobs for which they have been identified.
People want to see the best persons in government. They also want to see those who have not performed, or who have brought embarrassment to the government and country, removed.
Members of the public are not unreasonable. They accept the restrictions placed on the President in choosing his Ministers. They understand that a President has to choose most of his Ministers from his party’s list of candidates for the elections, since Ministers are expected to sit in the National Assembly, and all but four of the MPs on each side have to come from the list of candidates of their respective parties.
But the public also expects that when elected political appointees misbehave or perform poorly, they should be removed. One of the main grouses, which persons had with the PPPC was the fact that many of its Ministers had become too stale, had misbehaved in government, or were performing disastrously. Yet, successive PPP Presidents showed a steely reluctance to replace these unworthy apparatchiks.
Burnham understood better than most, the importance of Cabinet reshuffles. He also understood the need to blood new talent and to ensure that he tried different combinations of Ministers when things were not going well. It did not mean, however, that he ended up with the best. The opposite at times was true. Close to the end of his reign, some of his political choices became a source of amusement.
President Granger has been reluctant to make any serious reshuffle of his Cabinet. There have been a few instances of switching of portfolios, but no major reshuffle has occurred under his watch. As such, people may falsely draw the conclusion that he may be satisfied with the performance of his Ministers or is hamstrung in making changes.
People do not expect perfection. All they ask is for a President to hold his Ministers and senior officials accountable, and to act decisively whenever there are failings. Are there no other persons on the list of candidates of the PNCR who can replace some of the present political appointees? Is that asking too much?

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Is the present Cabinet the pick of the crop?

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