No breach of Cummingsburg Accord
Cabinet Secretary and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon
Cabinet Secretary and Minister of State, Joseph Harmon

-Harmon says all ministerial appointments were done after consultations

Minister of State and General Secretary of APNU, Joseph Harmon, has refuted claims made by Kaieteur News Columnist, Mr. Freddie Kissoon, who, in his column on March 4, 2107, accused the Head of State of acting in contravention of the Cummingsburg Accord by arbitrarily appointing three ministers of government.

According to a statement issued by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU),Minister Harmon said: “all appointments of ministers are made by the President. A Minister’s job is to assist the President in the function of his office in a particular ministry so all Ministers, their job is to carry out some of the duties that belong to the President, so it is the President’s responsibility to appoint Ministers.”

Harmon insisted that the President did not act on his own so any attempt to assign a label to His Excellency in the performance of his duties is malicious. “Mr. Kissoon should clearly speak to those ministers that he referred to in his article and find out from them what the true facts are,” Harmon stated.

In his article, Kissoon said that if the President appointed three Ministers in the persons of Mr. Raphael Trotman, Mr. Noel Holder and Mr. Dominic Gaskin, then it is highly unlikely that the 60-40 ratio in assigning ministries was adhered to as stipulated in the Cummingsburg Accord. Minister Harmon,however,said that indeed the historic Accord provided for certain ministries had to be assigned to A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and some to the Alliance For Change (AFC).

He went on to explain that in keeping with that arrangement, the AFC was assigned the Ministry of Agriculture for which Mr. Noel Holder was nominated for the position. Similarly, Mr. Dominic Gaskin, an executive member of the AFC, was recommended by his party to head the Ministry of Business which was called the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce under the previous administration.

“Recommendations and consultations that is how the President functions, he does not sit down all by himself in some room and make decisions. He consults with his Cabinet and even after that he takes further consultations from persons who might have a specific interest in an issue so the President is about consultation. He insists on that in this Government, that we must always consult and so this article which seeks to say that the President, on his own, picked these three ministers and gave them those Ministries is malicious,” the Minister of State said.

With regard to Trotman’s appointment, Harmon clarified that he was left unassigned after the AFC was allocated its full quota of ministries; however, based on the recommendation of the party’s then leadership, President Granger appointed Mr. Trotman as the Minister of Governance within the Ministry of the Presidency. “All of these recommendations were made by the AFC…”

Minister Harmon maintained. Harmon also condemned Mr. Kissoon’s attempt to convey the impression that there was some nepotism at play with the Head of State’s appointment of Mr. Gaskin, who is his son-in-law. “Minister Gaskin is an executive member of the AFC; he was the treasurer of the AFC when we went into elections; he was always a high-ranking member of that party, so it has nothing to do with him being the son-in-law of the President. This is a very subtle attempt to put a label of nepotism unto the President and we must roundly reject it, that’s my position,” Minister Harmon said.

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1 thought on “No breach of Cummingsburg Accord”

  1. Trotman was not on the list submitted by the Leadership of the AFC, but was appointed a Minister on the good graces of President Granger. The probability exists that he was not considered suitable to represent the interests of the AFC. He now leads the AFC. What a Comedy?

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