As we told you last night, the Ministry of Natural Resources - or Ministry of Lands - as it is commonly called - will now be under the portfolio of Senator-Minister Godwin Hulse. Former Minister Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega confirmed that he asked the Prime Minister to be relieved of it - because of all the pressure that his colleagues and others were bringing on him. So now that pressure falls on Hulse - or does it? He put a lockdown on the immigration department that substantially - if not totally - stopped the hustling and influence peddling in that key department. So will he do that same at Lands? The Prime Minister says he gave Hulse the nod because he is good at implementing systems:
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I know Godwin Hulse to be somebody who is very big on systems, who is very big on organization because of his engineer's mind will always want to restructure and try to configure things differently and that is fine. I don't know him to be somebody who will simply as you say put things in some sort of lock down. He is far too intelligent - he is far too clever - he is far too enlightened for that to happen. So I absolutely no doubt that the Lands Department, although there may be some sort of re-organization, some sort of refresh, will continue to operate in a way that will see it serve the public and serve the business community and serve the economy."
And yesterday at the press conference to name the new minister, we could kind of tell that Hulse - who is the only Senator Minister this time around - was pleased as peach that he had been given a substantial ministry. And why not? It's a choice political plum - and one which some of Hulse's colleagues say should be reserved for someone with a mandate, someone who was elected - not selected. We asked him about all that yesterday:...
Jules Vasquez
"How will you manage, what has been called a "hotbed of corruption.""
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Natural Resources and Immigration
"Jules, first of all thanks. I had immigration you know. I started out with the same basic issues and we set about to put in certain structures which would deliver at the end of the day. Structures that would be; 1) transparent, that people would eventually understand and that would ease these kinds of pressures. Because people then realize that there is a perfect structure in place to be able to deliver what the people wanted. People are mobile and so things like passports and so are always pressured. People always want that delivered. Land is always here. The great Mayans were here probably where I live and I don't even know who lived on that spot. But, there is also a philosophy that every Belizean feels he or she deserves a piece of the jewel and in a proper form that I can say well I own something, this is mine. And I will start with trying to set about to deliver on that and also not only that, but to put it in a way that the back and forth that we've heard and all the things don't happen. So first of all, I'll have to sit down, look at what we have, look at structures, look at how we can do these delivers and move from there. But I am fairly confident we will get it done."
Jules Vasquez
"Now, there are those in the UDP who resent you. Who feels that that ministry is a type of war chest and that is how a party achieves political success by wielding the sort of power in that ministry and that a non-political person who doesn't have any mandate should not be given that ministry. That ministry is a reward for those who have won a mandate."
Hon. Godwin Hulse
"Well I haven't felt that. I serve at the Prime Minister's pleasure. I've been in the cabinet before. I've work with all my colleagues and I am in the cabinet again and I am sure I'll continue to work with them and they will understand where I am coming from. Because you have to realize that the mandate of the Prime Minister and the cabinet was to have good clean transparent government and we don't want to down play that point any significant way. I think that people, with time will get use to the structures and the changes that need to come about to lift the country to another level and that's where we want to go."
Jules Vasquez
"On the other side you have those in civil society who will say you are a hypocrite. Now, you are at Ministry of Lands and you just are there to feed the gravy train at the head waters of the UDP gravy train and that you are only being put there as a sort of figurehead when the hustling at some level has to continue. Because that's how politics works."
Hon. Godwin Hulse
"That's their view. I can only say that is their view. But it's not a view that been supportive by my record in any case and so certainly will not be supported by my record. I can say that."
Hulse has assumed control at the Ministry of Natural Resources where he is working with CEO where continuity is provided by returning CEO Sharon Ramclam.
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