We have some of the best ministers
Published:Thursday | January 27, 2022 | 12:07 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
Rhodes Scholar Dr Nigel Clarke, since being appointed finance and planning minister back in 2018, has proved himself to be the most intellectually adept, most knowledgeable, and most suited for his portfolio responsibility, in comparison to his predecessors and peers. Arguably, he is Jamaica’s best finance minister, to date, and that is saying a lot because his predecessors – including Edward Seaga, P.J. Patterson, Omar Davies, Bruce Golding, Audley Shaw, and Dr Peter Phillips, respectively – all made their marks in this most challenging and complex ministry.
Likewise, Ed Bartlett has been Jamaica’s best minister of tourism, to date. He has been a minister extraordinaire, in a portfolio that oversees an industry that employs more Jamaicans than any other local industry. Under his leadership, we have had a record-breaking number of tourists, via cruise ships and aeroplane and his sterling captaincy of the tourism industry through rough COVID seas.
Dr Christopher Tufton, minister of health, has, arguably, been Jamaica’s best health minister, to date, and given the immense and complex challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented, and continues to present, since 2019, in my judgement, he has done exceedingly well.
Rhodes Scholar and Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck – given the game-changing judicial laws that have been proposed and passed under his watch, and the numerous practical and long overdue improvements that have been made within the court system – has been, arguably, Jamaica’s best justice minister, to date.
Last, if the rest of the Cabinet ministers, in the current JLP Holness-led administration, were of the superb calibre of the aforementioned gentlemen, their respective ministries and, by extension, Jamaica, would benefit far more significantly than they currently do.
PATRICK GALLIMORE