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*** WARNER KEEPS JOB IN T&T RESHUFFLE. At the end of June, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar reshuffled her cabinet, firing two ministers but keeping embattled minister Jack Warner, albeit in a downgraded role. Warner has been under pressure since football’s world governing body, FIFA, announced an investigation into bribery allegations involving Warner and another executive member of FIFA. Instead of sacking the Minister of Works and Transport, the prime minister has left Warner in charge of Works while putting Transport into a separate ministry. Warner is also chairman of the United National Congress (UNC), the main party in the governing People’s Partnership.Therese Baptiste-Cornelis has been replaced as Minister of Health by Dr Fuad Khan, and Rudrawatee Nan Ramgoolam has been replaced as Minister of Public Administration by Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan. The cabinet was originally formed in May 2010, and the prime minister gave as her reason for the changes the need for “a more effective alignment of competencies”.
*** DOMINICA BUDGETS FOR GROWTH. On 1 July, Dominica’s prime minister and minister for finance, Roosevelt Skerrit, presented his budget to parliament for the year ending 30 June 2012. Skerrit told parliament: “Preliminary GDP estimates suggest that amid the global economic slowdown, Dominica’s economy exhibited an admirable degree of resilience, a fact attested to by regional and international observers.”
According to the prime minister, “the gains and policy space created by prudent fiscal management” has enabled the government “to undertake counter-cyclical measures to address the adverse effect spilling over from the global slowdown”. In a statement issued on 1 June, the IMF said: “Dominica is emerging from the crisis, building on the timely and strong countercyclical response over the past few years. Growth turned positive last year, but the recovery is expected to slow in 2011 to 0.8 percent, given tepid demand and the needed fiscal consolidation, and to gradually rise to 2 percent over the medium-term.”
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