Opposition Ralph Thorne has described the resignation of Minister of Housing Dwight Sutherland as an event that points to wider political trouble for the administration of Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
Thorne noted the Prime Minister’s disclosure yesterday, that Sutherland asked to be relieved of his portfolio and said this was significant and the Prime Minister may have unwittingly revealed more by disclosing that Sutherland’s request to be relieved of his portfolio was “after discussion”.
Thorne explained that the development was in line with warnings he had made about the Government’s handling of the Housing Opportunity, Production and Empowerment (HOPE) project.
Blame
During his Reply to the 2024 Budget, he raised questions about the way housing policy was being executed and predicted that Sutherland might ultimately be made to carry the blame.
“I characterised Mr Sutherland’s various pronouncements on housing as being ‘the voice of Jacob’, while there was a different hidden ‘hand of Esau’ at work infelicitously. I speculated even then that he would be sacrificed for the scandalous HOPE project, for which the entire Cabinet ought to have taken collective responsibility,” Thorne said.
“It remains a fact that the $60 million was voted and approved by the Cabinet out of the Housing Credit Fund. Mr Sutherland has been the hapless messenger who did the public lifting of heavy infelicity.”
The Opposition Leader said Sutherland had become closely associated with some of the Government’s most controversial measures. He pointed to the parliamentary resolution that authorised the transfer of land at Jemmott’s Lane to Afreximbank.
‘Voice of Jacob’
“Again, it was Mr Sutherland’s ‘voice of Jacob’ that brought to Parliament the infamous land gift resolution of the public property at Jemmott’s Lane to Afreximbank, Mr Sutherland has become the Government’s hapless messenger of its failures in relation to its housing and lands programme,” he said.
Sutherland, he said, had also been placed in the position of justifying the Government’s housing record by referring to private building activity.
“He has been going around the country counting the construction of private houses, while seeking to persuade Barbadians that the Government is in some way responsible for these private enterprises. Mr Sutherland’s many failures have been the Government’s many failures.
“One well remembers a statement made by the Prime Minister after the 2022 election in which a veiled threat was made to Mr Sutherland as to the consequence of his expected failure to oversee the construction of 10 000 houses in five years,” he said.
He pointed out that the condition of unfinished housing projects stood as evidence of this shortfall.
“The abandoned houses at Pool, St John, now stand as an unhappy testament to his Government’s many failures in housing,” he added.
Thorne noted that he had warned in his Budget Reply earlier this year that the minister was at risk of being removed.
“I again lamented Mr Sutherland’s invidious role and anticipated his sacrifice by the Prime Minister,” Thorne said.
(CLM)
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