The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Darren Henfield said yesterday the government was awaiting responses from host countries before new diplomats are deployed.

He told The Tribune that all diplomat appointments had been finalised.

In June, Mr Henfield revealed his office had requested that all foreign service workers appointed by the Christie administration “tie up their offices” by late July, as the Minnis administration prepares to soon name their replacements.

At the time, the North Abaco MP admitted that there was no clear timeline in place for any official transition.

Shortly after the FNM was elected to office, party Chairman Sidney Collie indicated that the FNM would begin making appointments to government boards, committees and diplomatic posts in two to three weeks.

Mr Collie, a member of the administration’s transition team, at that time said the party’s “first order of business” was to get to Parliament and approve its initial budget; subsequent to which the party had proposed to make its appointments.

When it served as the Official Opposition, the FNM was very outspoken on the Progressive Liberal Party’s appointments.

Then shadow minister of foreign affairs, former St Anne’s MP Hubert Chipman raised concerns about the former government’s diplomatic appointments, referring to the Christie administration’s approach to them as “drip, drip, helter-skelter announcements.”

Several diplomatic posts went unfilled for more than a year under the Christie administration.

The new fiscal year began July 1.