Dominica, CMC – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has read the riot act to members of his new administration following Monday’s general election in which he was returned to office for a thir consecutive five-year term.
Skerrit, addressing party supporters at a victory rally in the northern town of Portsmouth on Monday night, said that ministers in the new Dominica Labour Party (DLP) administration will now have to show greater commitment to their constituents and refrain from using excuses such as, they have important meetings to attend.
Results showed that the DLP won 15 of the 21 seats contested in the election with the remaining six going to the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) that had entered the race under a new leader, Lennox Linton.
Linton comfortably won the Marigot seat he had inherited from former prime minister Edison James.
“I am the prime minister of the country and I have many more responsibilities than all of the ministers but I try to make time to see people,” he said, noting that “from the time they get appointed as ministers they become too busy.
“You know, I have a meeting, I have to travel, I have to go there, I have to go overseas, I have things I have to go to, well I can tell except if that meeting overseas is extremely important they will stay in the constituency because I cannot explain to anybody how it is you can be a parliamentary representative in a constituency and people are saying they are not seeing you for five year.
“They ask for constituency offices, I gave them constituency offices and when you go to the constituency offices they are closed most of the times. So I am saying to you there shall be specific public office days when you know you could go to an office and meet a parliamentary representative during those times.
“They can be vex if they want that doesn’t matter with me, I don’t bother if they vex,” Skerrit told cheering supporters.
Among the causalities of the election were Health Minister Julius Timothy and Information Minister Ambrose George. Both men lost their seats in the capital.
( See results: http://www.caribbeanelections.com/blog/?p=4401#more-4401 )
