Couva South MP, Rudy Indarsingh said he is deeply perplexed about the Prime Minister’s recent Cabinet reshuffle, in which the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation was separated, and Senator Allyson West has been appointed as Minister of Public Administration, and Senator Hassel Bacchus has been appointed as Minister of Digital Transformation.
Indarsingh said, “This high-level shift comes a year after the creation of the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation, and makes absolutely no sense at this time. The nation is yet to really understand the purpose of a Digital Transformation Ministry, far less see any delivery from that Ministry since created almost a year ago in 2020.”
Additional, he asked, “How did the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation assist in the conduct of online classes during the Covid-19 crisis? How did the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation assist in creating new avenues for the digital payment for state goods and services given the need for reduced physical movement during Covid-19? How did the Ministry of Public Administration and Digital Transformation partner with small and medium businesses to boost their capacity to conduct business online given the challenges faced in the pandemic?”
“What is the justification for the creation of yet another Government Ministry? What is the new mandate of the Ministry of Digital Transformation? If Senators West and Bacchus could not have run a composite Ministry together, how can they be expected to run a whole Ministry by themselves?” he said.
Indarsingh said, “the Prime Minister is now increasing the size and wage bill of his Cabinet at a time when public expenditure ought to be prudent, and guided by the prevailing hardships being faced by workers across the nation. The Prime Minister is making this Cabinet the latest ‘make-work ’programme, while the working class citizens themselves are out of work.
It is scornful that the Prime Minister would put over 120,000 workers on the breadline, yet appoint another Minister who will cost taxpayers and workers on the breadline, hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“What the Prime Minister ought to have done in this reshuffle was shuffle out the Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert, for his catastrophic mishandling of the economy; shuffle out the Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh for his ‘banana republic’ handling of this country’s Covid-19 crisis; shuffle out the Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, for leading the State in losing a landmark number of cases; shuffle out the Minister of Energy, Stuart Young for $2.1 billion in losses at the National Gas Company (NGC); and shuffle out the Minister of Labour, Stephen Mc Clashie, for failing to protect the interests of the thousands of working class citizens who were displace by the Prime Minister’s bungled handling of the past six years.”
According to Indarsingh, “The only ‘digital transformation’ this country needs today is to instantly ‘block and delete’ this PNM administration, who continues to ‘LOL’ in the faces of displaced, tormented citizens of this country who can say nothing more than ‘OMG’.
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