The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip Davis has given The Bahamas a ministerial team that rivals or exceeds those of larger Caribbean neighbours, placing nearly 30 ministers over a country of about 400,000 people and renewing questions about the size and cost of government.

Mr Davis unveiled a 29-member ministerial team over the weekend after the Progressive Liberal Party’s election victory, appointing 21 Cabinet ministers and seven ministers of state in addition to himself.

The line-up is one of the largest in Bahamian history and is bigger than the 22-member Cabinet Mr Davis appointed after taking office in 2021.

It is also substantially larger than the first ministerial team appointed by the Minnis administration after the Free National Movement won office in 2017, when the government began with 13 Cabinet ministers and three ministers of state.

The new Davis administration gives The Bahamas roughly one minister for every 14,000 residents, based on a population of just over 400,000.

The figure is striking when compared with several Caribbean countries, including some with larger populations and more complex economies.

Jamaica, with a population of about 2.8 million, has 19 Cabinet ministers and 13 ministers of state, according to current government listings. Even when ministers of state are included, Jamaica’s wider ministerial team is only slightly larger than The Bahamas’, despite Jamaica having about seven times the population.

Trinidad and Tobago, with about 1.5 million people, also has a ministerial line-up in the same broad range as The Bahamas. Its current administration includes Cabinet ministers, ministers in ministries and parliamentary secretaries, but the country’s population is more than three times that of The Bahamas.

Barbados is one of the few small-island peers with a similarly expansive ministerial structure. Its Parliament currently lists a wide ministerial team of Cabinet ministers and ministers of state, with about 27 members serving a country of fewer than 300,000 people.

Other Caribbean countries operate with smaller ministerial teams.

Antigua and Barbuda, which recently held a general election, has an 11-member Cabinet. Saint Lucia’s official Cabinet list is also smaller than The Bahamas’ new ministerial team, while St Vincent and the Grenadines’ new government has a 17-member team, including 14 government ministers, two senators and an attorney general.

The comparisons show that The Bahamas is not alone among small Caribbean states in maintaining a sizeable executive. However, the Davis administration now sits near the upper end of the region by raw ministerial size, while also having a high minister-to-population ratio.

The size of Mr Davis’ Cabinet was also questioned after the PLP’s 2021 election victory, when he appointed a 22-member Cabinet and later defended the decision as necessary because of the scale of the country’s problems.

“As we welcome the seven parliamentary secretaries who have just been sworn in, I want to take the opportunity to expand a little on the broad reasoning and rationale behind the Cabinet appointments,” Mr Davis said at the time.

“Our country is in crisis. These challenges are unprecedented in scale and scope, in breadth and depth. First of all, you need to make sure you have a team in place that is heavily focused on the things you wish to get done.

“This is why, in my remarks yesterday, I alluded to the need to put ‘all hands on deck’. Afterwards, members of the press queried the need for the size of Cabinet that I have appointed. It made me realise that I needed to spell out in greater detail, exactly what the job of this Cabinet will be.”

Mr Davis has now returned with an even larger executive team, expanding the ministerial ranks at the start of his second consecutive term.