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Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"She has not made any decision to leave the cabinet. She is leaving as a consequence of the effluxion of time. The explanation for that being that when I invited the attorney to join the cabinet after the last election, she was quite clear to me that she would do so, but only for a year. She indicated that both in terms of her commitments to her law firm and her law partner, as well as to her family, she would not be able to serve for longer than a year. So as she put it, that year has now gone by. In fact you gave us a little bit brata. And as a consequence she will demit office at the end of this month."

Hon. Vanessa Retreage, Departing Min. of Natural Resources
"I read with amazement some of the post on facebook and their screenshotting and sending to me, because everybody who knows me, knows that I do not have facebook about all the reasons why I am resigning. I am not resigning, but time is up. Sadly it's only because time is up and I can't confirm any of the juicy gossip that has been going around. I remain committed to this UDP administration and will provide any support I can whenever I can to this UDP administration and I am confident that this administration will see the country through these troubling times that we are having."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"And as the 1st January 2017, the Hon. Michael Peyrefitte will become the new attorney general of Belize. Now, the AG also demits office also is giving up her position as a senator. So the Hon, Peyrefitte will replace her as well in the senate of the national assembly of Belize."

"With respect to the lands ministry, that will be placed under your humble servant. That will now be joined with the ministry of finance. So I will be the new minister of lands or minister of natural resources."

"Dr. Barnett who is already the minister of state in the ministry of finance will of course be the minister of state in the expanded ministry and quite frankly it is Dr. Barnett who will have day to day charge of the lands ministry. The police ministry will now go across to the minister of foreign affairs. But again, with the same arrangement under which the Hon. Elodio Aragon as the minister of state will have the defacto leadership of that ministry. One thing that those of you who tried to fir it out information were not able to have any sense of, is who is to replace Michael Peyrefitte as speaker of the house. Now, I pause here to say that that's a tall order. I think Michael Peyrefitte was without a doubt the best speaker of the modern era in this country."

"We will proposed to the house at the first meeting in the new year the election of Mrs. Laura Longsworth to the speaker of the house. Now those of you who are familiar with Mrs. Longsworth will know that she is a Belizean woman of great accomplishments or great distinction. I believe she has a Master's degree in nursing administration. She is a retired nurse, head of the Belize Cancer Society and chair of the AIDS Commission. We have no doubt that Mrs. Longsworth who is not a partisan will be absolutely like that, fair but firm. We think she brings a great deal to the position. We think that she currently commands a huge amount of respect in the society on the part of those who know her and that is certainly something that will stand her in good stead once the house were to vote to elect her as speaker. We believe that just the fact of that respect alone will lead to perhaps a less rambunctious period, in terms of the life and history of the House of Representatives."

So now, the Barrow Administration, which proved impervious to mid - term Cabinet shuffles in its first 102 months in office - has now had three shuffles in a little over four months.

It's been a real rollercoaster for the Administration - and much of the sudden changes have affected the ministry of Natural Resources which has gone through four ministers since November of last year.

One logically thinks, this couldn't have been the plan - when the idea of governance is to create stability. That's what we asked the Prime Minister today about Vanessa Retreage's five month stint as Natural Resources minister:...

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"When you appointed Miss Retreage in August of this year, did you envisioned then that it would only be a 4-month term that she would serve as minister of natural resources?"

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Well I knew what the arrangement was between us, so I had to be very conscious of that distinct possibility. But I was hoping to persuade her to stay a little longer you see."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"You will now become the third minister of natural resources in 13 months. This is a lot of shifting around in a ministry which you know as well as anyone is a mess in many regards. Is this any way to solve the problem or to clean up the mess by going through a succession of well-meaning ministers who don't have the time or who haven't been given the luxury of the time to sufficiently address the numerous problems in that ministry?"

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Clearly, the ideal would have been after the appointment of a new minister was made following the last general elections to have that minister see us through the term. Events have overtaken us. As you know prior to this development, there was an enforced departure from the cabinet and that is what set in motion the first set of changes that we made. I regret greatly that Vanessa can't give us a long stint. But as I say I won't be greedy. I think ultimately we're going to end up in a place where we will be able to demonstrate without fear of contradiction to the Belizean people that that lands department has been turned around."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"May I live to see it."

So - to hear the Prime Minister tell it - Retreage's departure was all just a matter of time. But was it also a matter of threatening words? Multiple reports say that she had been threatened in that post where she had committed to uncover many dirty deeds done cheap. She answered that question today:...

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"Were you at any point the recipient of threats?"

Hon. Vanessa Retreage, Departing Min. of Natural Resources
"Yes. About a month ago I received an email and an email indicating that there was some payment of some money to do harm to me, not specifically referring to me, a generalize email. I reported it to the police and for that period of time, they heighten security until they could have determined whether or not the threat was real or was just spam. They concluded their investigation a long with the seat of the central information office. They conclude that investigation and it was spam. It came from a server in the United States, a corrupt server in the United States that had been hacked by an individual. So that is the extent of any threat or lack thereof that I received."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"So that did not have any effect on..., because the Prime Minister says he would have wish that you would stay."

Hon. Vanessa Retreage, Departing Min. of Natural Resources
"No, that was about I would say 6 weeks ago. If that had the effect I would have left then. But no. It is really just as a result of personal obligations."

The PUP sent out a release a few minutes ago calling the explanation for Retreage's departure, "bizarre".

The PUP concludes that because there have been three Ministers of Natural Resources in 13 months, quote, Prime Minister Dean Barrow has lost control of this Ministry and his administration in the past year." End quote.