Prime Minister Phillips has Independent Office

─ oversees Energy, Telecommunications Sector

DPI, Guyana, Saturday, August 15, 2020

To allow for the realignment of Ministerial portfolios and ensure efficiency, the Office of the Prime Minister of Guyana will no longer be located in the same building as the Office of the President.

Instead, the PPP/C Government led by His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, has opted to separate these two important offices. This was disclosed, by Vice-President, Hon. Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, during a press briefing on Friday.

In the case of the Prime Minister’s office specifically, the Vice-President said the President expects meaningful contributions towards national development and for that reason sectors have been realigned, and in this case of the Office of the Prime Minister, the formal duties reassigned.

The Prime Minister’s office is responsible for the Energy Sector and Telecommunications.

“First of all, in terms of office, we were critical of the former APNU+AFC Coalition for their role in denuding the Office of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, under the PPP/C, was Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds, and he had a weighty portfolio. He did technical work, and so we wanted to ensure, first of all, that our Prime Minister had a portfolio that keeps him busy,” the Vice-President explained. 

Dr. Jagdeo said the Office of Prime Minister should also be Independent.

“Office of the President became a super Ministry [under the former APNU+AFC Coalition Administration], so we made sure that we took these portfolios and placed them back with Ministers, independently. The Prime Minister has his independent office, and his portfolio deals with the Energy Sector, which is a huge sector,” Dr. Jagdeo stated. 

With these responsibilities, Prime Minister, Brigadier (ret’d), Hon. Mark Phillips, would be integrally involved in the energy solution for the country, the Vice-President explained.

Additionally, with the Prime Minister overlooking the Telecommunications Sector, the new PPP/C Government hopes to end the Telecommunications monopoly in the country.

Prime Minister Phillips, a retired Military Officer, who served as the Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) from 2013 to 2016, holds as a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Public Management from the University of Guyana (UG), and a Masters of Science in Public Sector Management from La Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.

He also studied at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington D.C., and the United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

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