Are you being served? - Sickly Roger, wandering Portia, ever-present PJ
published: Sunday | April 10, 2005

Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter

GOVERNMENT MAY have saved itself some money on foreign trips when the foreign affairs and foreign trade portfolios were amalgamated under minister K. D. Knight in 2002. And although Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke is not the most frequently absent from official Cabinet meetings, he has been the most sickly while Local Government Minister Portia Simpson Miller is frequently missing while "off on other business."

All this is according to the attendance records of members of the nation's all-important Cabinet, to official meetings from 2001-4.

A complete analysis of these records, made available to The Sunday Gleaner under the Access to Information Act, show that of the 160 Cabinet sessions held in the last four years the portly Minister Clarke was absent 21 times and was registered as 'indisposed' for more than half the number of meetings missed. Since 2001, Mr. Clarke's sickly bouts have increased from once in 2001 to an average of four and a half times in the last two years.