~ Left in charge of only Policy Dept., Staff Bureau ~
POND ISLAND –Louis Brown, Secretary-General of Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI, will be relieved of bulk of his responsibilities by Minister Christophe Emmanuel as of Monday. Brown has only been left in charge of the Policy Department and Staff Bureau of the Ministry.
In an August 23 memo, obtained by The Daily Herald, Emmanuel informed Brown, that effective Monday, August 28, “you will no longer be responsible for the management or any form of coordination of the work of the Divisions/Services within the ministry. You are therefore being relieved of your responsibility as outlined in article 3 of the Landsverordening Inrichting en Organisatie Landsoverheid (In English: The National Ordinance on Government Organization and Service).”
All departments, except the two left with Brown, are to report directly to Emmanuel as of Monday in accordance with the same ordinance.
“Instead these Divisions/Services are to report directly to my person as minister,” according to the memo. All documents stemming from the Divisions/Services not under Brown’s control “will no longer require a signature from your person and will therefore no longer need to be sent to you for advice,” stated Emmanuel in the memo.
Brown is instructed by the Minister to “ensure all pending documents are processed by your person no later than Friday [August 25 – Ed]. Said documents should be forwarded for decision-making or returned to the relevant Division/Service accordingly.” The minister said he wants “to receive the necessary advice to this extent by Monday, August 28, 2017.”
Brown has been further instructed “to ensure that the staff is adequately and timely informed of this decision … the management team and other ministries will be informed accordingly of my decision.”
Emmanuel noted in the memo that his decision to relieve Brown of majority of his duties was in keeping with his “more direct approach at the overall management of the ministry to ensure that the ministry performs to my expectations.”
The move, he said, also stemmed from regular meetings with managers, discussion with employees and residents as well as observations of his Cabinet. Based on those sessions, Emmanuel said, “… it has become evident that a number of structural changes need to be made within the ministry to facilitate a more efficient way of operating.”
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/68874-vromi-head-to-be-relieved-of-more-responsibilities-mon
Mr. Brown is a man with vast experience, competence and true integrity. I suspect that he exercised his integrity and stood up for fairplay which may have contrasted with the direction the minister was heading so the minister took him out of the loop.