By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

ST ANNE’S MP Hubert Chipman yesterday blasted the government for its management of the foreign service and handling of diplomatic appointments.

Pointing to the government’s failure to obtain agreements from host countries prior to announcing appointments, Mr Chipman said it has been speculated that the government will swap out Elliston Rahming for retired neurosurgeon Eugene Newry in the post of Bahamas Ambassador to Washington.

Mr Chipman said: “What is even more concerning than the government’s lazy and lax attitude toward filling diplomatic vacancies of their own making, has been the debacle and amateur missteps in the appointment of an ambassador to the US.”

He added: “This has not happened before in the 40 years of our existence as an independent nation.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell yesterday said he would address diplomatic matters on July 1, and declined further comment on the matter.

Last month, Mr Chipman called on the government to “come clean” and explain to the public exactly why some of the country’s diplomatic appointments to the United States had not been confirmed.

In his statement yesterday, Mr Chipman said: “Now, one year following elections to office, the Christie administration still has not completed the appointment of diplomatic heads of mission to either the US or China.

Insults are not taken lightly in the diplomatic world.”

He added: “Prime Minister Perry Christie and Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell cannot use inexperience as an excuse.”

Charging that diplomatic offices abroad are suffering due to “extraordinary incompetence”, Mr Chipman lamented the departure from the foreign service of Dr Paulette Bethel.

Mr Chipman said Dr Bethel has left the country to take up a post on the staff of the president of the United Nations General Assembly.