OPM, superministry called election war room

Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ assembly of key members of the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) election machinery under his wing has caught the eye of political commentator Lloyd B. Smith, who said the administration is fine-tuning its organisation for the impending local government polls due next month.

In announcing a Cabinet shuffle late Monday 16 months after a thumping general election victory, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) said Robert Morgan, Robert Montague, and Matthew Samuda would take up duties under the OPM and the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation.

Morgan, who previously held the role of minister of state in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, is now the de facto minister of information at OPM, while Samuda, the previous minister without portfolio in the national security ministry and the JLP’s communications point man, will serve in the economic growth and job creation ministry.

JLP Chairman Montague, who previously led the transport and mining ministry, will also serve as minister without portfolio in that ministry.

Montague, whose tenure was marred by several scandals, made him a lightning rod for critics.

On Monday, Smith said that Holness’ new Cabinet had been designed to come across favourably in the eyes of the public amid intense pressure to sack or reassign underperformers.

“I am beginning to think that what we are looking at is a Cabinet that is designed to take the Government into a local government election that looks favourably to the public from the Government’s perspective,” Smith said in a Gleaner interview.

Both Holness’ and the JLP’s favourability ratings had dropped, according to an RJRGLEANER-commissioned Don Anderson poll released last year.

The JLP saw an 11-percentage-point decline in favourability, while Holness’ positive performance rating of 65 per cent in 2020 dipped to 42 per cent.

“When we look inside the Office of the Prime Minister, to me, what we are looking at is almost like a war room,” said Smith, noting that Morgan and Samuda were good communicators.

Civil-society advocate and social commentator Carol Narcisse, meanwhile, has suggested that the benefits of the superministry are yet to be seen.

“What is the demonstrated throughput of a superministry of this nature and actual job creation in the nation? What precisely has this ministry been able to do that has had a direct correspondence to job creation and employment and [economic growth]?” she questioned.

She said the ministry has seemingly become a refuge for people who cannot be put out to pasture.

“It’s concerning that there’s such concentration of persons and portfolios in the Office of the Prime Minister and in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation. We ought to be very concerned about efficiency, effectiveness, and role clarification,” said Narcisse.