Hazel supports Hazel

“Pure foolishness!” That is how women’s activist and spokesperson for the Women’s Network, Hazel Brown yesterday described criticisms of Education Minister Hazel Manning’s decision to go to Jamaica with her husband, Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

UNC MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar slammed Hazel Manning for abandoning her ministry at a time when SEA results were being released and stated that she had to make up her mind whether she was going to serve as Minister of Education or function as the Prime Minister’s wife. Hazel Manning is attending the 24th Regular meeting of the conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community and other activities related to the 30th Anniversary of Caricom in Jamaica. Brown said she supported H Manning’s decision to accompany her husband, the Prime Minister. “It is an important historic Caricom event. All the other heads (of Government) have gone with their wives. Didn’t Mrs Panday go on all the trips with Mr Panday? ” Told that Oma Panday did not have a substantive ministerial portfolio,  Brown stated that it was “foolishness” to argue that Mrs Manning should have stayed behind. “So Mr Manning must go by himself?” she asked incredulously. “It is not an issue worthy of newspaper time and space. And Kamla should know better.  I expect Mr Manning to go and to take his wife also,” Brown said, adding that somebody else was acting for her as Education Minister. (Colm Imbert is acting for H Manning). Brown said there was no evidence that H Manning was “willy nilly traipsing all over the place.” She added that maybe politics required Persad-Bissessar to make that remark but “for the rest of us it is just foolishness.”