In Westminster style governments, individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention that a Cabinet Minister bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of their Ministry or department. The origin of ministerial responsibility, in relation to the expectation that cabinet ministers should resign for departmental errors appears to be one of those parliamentary conventions of the Westminster system of government.
Not in Trinidad and Tobago!
Two of many incidents alone gives cause for grave concern.
Just over two years ago, four divers died at a facility owned by PARIA Fuel Trading Company Limited, a fully owned State enterprise.
A Govt appointed Commission of Inquiry found that “Paria made little or no attempt to rescue in that they failed to manage and coordinate the resources that were available. The opportunity to rescue the men from the pipe was completely wasted by a degree of inertia that is difficult to comprehend.”
The COI concluded that it found “that there are sufficient grounds to conclude that Paria’s negligence could be characterized as gross negligence and consequently criminal.”
What has been the response of the Govt and the politically appointed Board of Directors? Stuart Young, the Minister of Energy and Energy Industries has never accepted any type of responsibility for this tragedy which incurred under his watch; so too has the Company’s Chairman, the CEO and the senior bureaucrats who are still at the company and are vehemently refusing to accept any responsibility for this.
Young continues to be a most successful undistinguished and non-producing Minister Extraordinaire. He has single handedly presided over the collapse of the country’s once booming energy sector.
And now, the country is reeling with the tragic and devastating news that 11 babies died at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the Port-of-Spain General Hospital (POSGH), due to a suspected bacterial infection.
And to add insult to injury, Health Minister Terrance Deyalsingh tells Parliament that an investigation was being conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Officers who are public servants with the Ministry of Health. He subsequently said the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) was invited to conduct an independent probe. No one knows where this investigation is heading and what will the final outcome say.
In these two tragic incidents, both Ministers Young and Deyalsingh have refused to accept any responsibility for the tragedies which occurred under their watch.
Does a Cabinet Minister have a moral duty to resign in circumstances in which blame can be assigned in instances of overall responsibility for the (in)actions and dereliction of duty from those who answer to him/her?
I also wish to challenge the academic experts in Government at the UWI to voice their views on whether the relevant Ministers, in the Westminster system of Government that we practice ought not to dutifully resign in the circumstances of the Paria tragedy and the 11 baby deaths.
The death of the four divers and now the most heart wrenching deaths of these 11 babies have added to the distrust and contempt that citizens have for these two Ministers and the Government.
These are just but two cases which this Keith Rowley-led PNM Administration have demonstrated that the notion of ministerial responsibility and integrity are non-existent!
Both Young and Deyalsingh, like so many of their Cabinet colleagues, are victims of their own arrogance, egotism and incompetence.