Replacement ministers

MP Doran has a point when he states that every minister has a replacement in the event of their absence.

Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin made a point of outlining this clearly during her speech after the swearing in of the Council of Ministers on June 25, 2018. The prime minister explained which ministers would replace each other in the event of absence.

The point is therefore, postponing meetings or any other activity due to unavailability of a minister should not be necessary. The replacement minister should be sufficiently up to date on the minister’s dossiers in order to represent that minister adequately. Ministers are appointed based on a certain level of competence and expertise to be capable managers of all ministerial affairs.

At the very least, these ministers should have a workable knowledge of the relevant topics as these matters are also discussed during Council of Minister’s meetings. We do not expect highly compensated ministers to be asleep during COM meetings, and certainly not while at the helm of their own or their colleague’s ministries.

So there should be no excuse why a replacement minister cannot fulfill the duty of sitting in for an absent minister during, for example, a parliament meeting, on – for instance – the airport reconstruction status. After all, they were all brought up to speed during the briefing the COM received on Tuesday this week, right?.