Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley Tues­day an­nounced a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, hours af­ter her In­dus­try, In­no­va­tion, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Min­is­ter Mar­sha Cad­dle re­signed, com­plain­ing that she had reached the point where “prin­ci­ples” no longer align.

In a state­ment, Mot­t­ley, the coun­try’s first fe­male head of gov­ern­ment since lead­ing the rul­ing Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty (BLP) to a con­vinc­ing vic­to­ry in 2018, said there would be changes in a num­ber of key min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios aimed at strength­en­ing the gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus on na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

She said con­se­quent up­on a re­quest of Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (with fo­cus on Crime Pre­ven­tion) Corey Layne to be re­lieved of his du­ties for per­son­al rea­sons,  the Min­istry of Peo­ple Em­pow­er­ment and El­der Af­fairs will now take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for crime pre­ven­tion, ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 26.

She al­so an­nounced that Kay Mc­Conney will  be­come the Min­is­ter of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and In­vest­ment, while  Chad Black­man will now serve as Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Tech­no­log­i­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Train­ing, suc­ceed­ing Mc­Conney.

San­dra Hus­bands will be­come the Min­is­ter of Train­ing and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion.

Mot­t­ley said that giv­en the re­quest of Cad­dle to be re­lieved of her du­ties, Jonathan Reid, for­mer­ly Chief of Staff in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, has been ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of In­no­va­tion, In­dus­try, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy.

She said Dr Crys­tal Haynes has agreed to step down as a sen­a­tor to fa­cil­i­tate the ap­point­ment of Jonathan Reid to that port­fo­lio.

In her state­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the new ap­pointees and un­der­scored the im­por­tance of these min­istries in Bar­ba­dos’ de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

“The Prime Min­is­ter on her own be­half and on be­half of the en­tire Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos thanks Corey Lane, Mar­sha Cad­dle and Dr Crys­tal Haynes for their ser­vice and con­tri­bu­tions, and look for­ward to her con­tin­ued sup­port in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” the state­ment added.

Ear­li­er, Cad­dle said she would re­main a mem­ber of the rul­ing BLP and as the par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the St Michael South Cen­tral con­stituen­cy.

In a state­ment, Cad­dle said a min­is­ter has a “du­ty to re­sign” when prin­ci­ples do not “align” in or­der for the will and work of the Gov­ern­ment can be done.

“I have reached such a point. I am proud of the work I have led in the Min­istry over these 14 months, and of which you will hope­ful­ly learn dur­ing these on­go­ing Es­ti­mates, in­clud­ing the in­vest­ments in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty that have been need­ed, and giv­ing Gov­Tech the re­sources to be­gin to build a re­al tech ecosys­tem for dig­i­tal ser­vices and trans­for­ma­tion. I think l’ve left a good wick­et for this sec­tor to be suc­cess­ful.”

Cad­dle, an econ­o­mist, said that one thing is cer­tain, and the peo­ple of Bar­ba­dos so over­whelm­ing­ly de­clared twice at the polls that the rul­ing BLP “is the clear choice to help guide this coun­try through both the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties that con­front us do­mes­ti­cal­ly, and in par­tic­u­lar glob­al­ly.

“I re­main com­mit­ted to the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty, to sup­port­ing my col­leagues in their im­por­tant work, and to serv­ing the peo­ple of St Michael South Cen­tral and Bar­ba­dos in every way I can.”

Cad­dle served as Min­is­ter in Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and In­vest­ment dur­ing the BLP’s first term in 2018 and fol­low­ing her suc­cess in the Jan­u­ary 2022 gen­er­al elec­tion, she de­clined the of­fer of a Cab­i­net po­si­tion, cit­ing oth­er pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ests.

Her Jan­u­ary 2024 ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter of In­dus­try, In­no­va­tion, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy rep­re­sents the sec­ond port­fo­lio she has held over the two terms of the BLP ad­min­is­tra­tion.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Feb 25, CMC

CMC