The Tribune

THE Minnis administration will begin making appointments to government boards, committees and diplomatic posts in two to three weeks, Free National Movement (FNM) chairman Sidney Collie said yesterday.

“The first order of business is to get Parliament to meet and to start the budget debate and then we will work on the appointments,” he said.

Mr Collie, a member of the administration’s transition team, said hundreds of people will have to be appointed throughout the government. The appointees will be chosen by the Minnis administration’s transition team.

That six-member team comprises Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, Deputy Prime Minister Peter Turnquest, Attorney General Carl Bethel, former parliamentarian Cornelius A Smith and former Ambassador to the United States Joshua Sears.

In 2012, the former Christie administration announced its full appointments to statutory boards and committees in early July after the May general election. However, former Prime Minister Perry Christie had been criticised for failing to appoint people to boards in time for the start of that fiscal year, July 1.

Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Bradley Roberts noted at the time that the former Ingraham administration appointed people to statutory boards on July 8, 2007, and that some board appointments had been made prior to that date.

Appointments will be made for relatively obscure groups, like the Advisory Committee on Corporate Development as well as for more prominent organisations like the Public Hospitals Authority. Appointments are typically watched closely by party faithfuls, some of whom hope to get plum posts.

Dr Minnis said on Monday that he will begin appointing people “in due course” to various boards and councils. “I am especially excited to invite a new generation of young people to serve on government boards,” he said at Government House.

“They will bring new energy, new ideas and a new perspective.”