No surprise there

The only surprising thing about former Labour Minister Larry Achong’s resignation on Friday, was the number of people who said they were surprised, even shocked. That Mr Achong would have to leave the Cabinet has been in the cards for many weeks, even months, and as he himself put it on Friday. “It (the resignation) was the correct thing to do.” Of course the resignation of Ministers for whatever reason is not part of our political culture and if there was any surprise on Friday it was because a Cabinet minister had actually done the honourable thing by resigning when he could not agree with his leader and colleagues.

Mr Achong had made it perfectly obvious that he did not support his Cabinet colleagues on a number of issues. He was at odds with Cabinet on the actions of the striking Atlantic LNG workers’ demands for increased wages. Cabinet did not approve his Sectoral Minimum Wage Proposal for the workers in the energy industry which affects most of his Point Fortin constituents. The final straw was the Prime Minister’s vagueness on Thursday over the timing of the implementation of the minimum wage which was an election promise, and Achong’s exclusion from an inter-ministerial team on the directly related labour issues. Add to this the fact that Mr Achong’s wife, Marlene Coudray, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the San Fernando City Corporation has challenged her transfer to Point Fortin describing the proposed transfer as an act of political victimisation and citing instances where several senior Government officials, including the Prime Minister had threatened to “deal with her”, Friday’s development was inevitable.

While we may not agree with Mr Achong’s views and proposals we congratulate him for the courage of his conviction. He could not remain in the Cabinet and disagree with positions taken by Cabinet. Yes, there is such a thing as a team player and going with the flow but a Minister can disagree with his colleagues and tell them so privately, but he can’t go publicly against the majority and expect to remain in the Cabinet.
There is such a thing as confidence in one’s colleagues. The Prime Minister has to tread very carefully now. Already two back benchers, Fitzgerald Hinds and Eudine Job are less than satisfied. The two have now become three. Mr Manning has to remember that he only has to lose two PNM parliamentarians and we are back to 18-18.