 Grenada’s
longest serving Minister of Sports, Adrian “Spaceman”
Mitchell is being replaced.
After serving in the post for eleven (11) straight years, Senator
Mitchell is making way for a new Minister of Sports in the person
of Roland Bhola, the elected Member of Parliament for the St.
Andrew North-east constituency.
The change in portfolio was announced Monday by Prime Minister
Dr Keith Mitchell at a press conference held at the Ministerial
Complex in the Botanical Gardens in St. George’s.
The Prime Minister disclosed that the former Sports Minister will
now join Agriculture Minister Gregory Bowen as the Second Minister
of Agriculture in the ruling New National Party (NNP) government.
Bhola will now take on fully the post of full Minister of Sports
and Community Development.
Government insiders have told this newspaper that the removal
of Bhola from the key agriculture ministry is not surprising given
his performance. A source said that the NNP hierarchy wanted Bhola
to take charge fully of the ministry and to allow Senior Minister
Bowen to concentrate on his other portfolios.
“The party people are disappointed with Bhola for not taking
over the ministry and running it. He was just inside there not
doing anything much”, he remarked. He also indicated that
Bhola was under pressure from constituents for landing a post
as a junior minister although he was an elected Member of Parliament
while non-elected members of the team were holding senior positions
in the government.
According to Prime Minister Mitchell, the NNP government has a
policy of allowing ministers to get involved in different ministries
over a period of time to broaden their experience in different
portfolios. He said the plan is not to have any particular minister
to remain in one particular ministry for a length of time but
this was not done in the case of Minister Adrian Mitchell.
He stated that government is moving him to another position for
precisely this purpose and the move should be seen as “correcting
it” and that the ministry needs a fresh head. Ministry of
Sports.
Prime Minister Mitchell said that when one person stays in a job
for too long the job either becomes stale for them or they become
stale for the job. He announced that the outgoing Sports Minister
will remain in the Cabinet as a full minister.
The change in portfolios comes at a time when the country is about
to speed up its preparations for the hosting of the World Cup
Cricket scheduled for 2007. The outgoing Sports Minister was demoted
to the bench of the Senate after he lost his St. Patrick East
seat in the 2003 general elections to the current Political Leader
of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Tillman
Thomas.
Since the elections, critics of Minister Adrian Mitchell have
accused him of not being seen regularly at his office in the
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