By Winston Williams- Chairman of the Public Health Board (Central Board Of Health)
In a political culture too often mistaken by novelty projects and cosmetic reform, the incorporation of Government Boards into the central governance architecture of the state of Antigua and Barbuda represents something far more substantial: institutional maturity.
The Gaston Browne–led administration has taken a deliberate and consequential step by explicitly embedding statutory boards and public bodies into the front line of policy execution and oversight.
That choice deserves commendation — not as party praise for its own sake, but as recognition of a reform that strengthens the Republic’s democratic spine.
In Antigua and Barbuda, Government Boards are not decorative appendages.
They are engines of service delivery, custodians of public assets, and guardians of regulatory discipline across housing, ports, utilities, health, tourism, education, financial services, land management, and development control.
To bring these Boards formally into the governance structure is to acknowledge what has long been true in practice: that governance does not reside only in the Cabinet Room, but also in the boardroom, the management office, and the community interface.
This decision by Prime Minister Gaston Browne is therefore not bureaucratic tinkering. It is political leadership with institutional consequence. Something the United Progressive Party could only dream of.
Good governance is not a slogan for campaign season. It is a design problem. It concerns accountability lines, decision rights, coordination, and transparency — the architecture within which public power operates. When Boards are peripheral, decision-making fragments. When Boards are central, governance coheres.
By anchoring Boards into the governance framework, the Administration has chosen structure over spectacle.
It has clarified the chain of accountability between Ministries, Cabinet, and the statutory agencies that translate policy into lived experience.
This shift reduces policy leakages, shortens feedback loops, and reinforces Cabinet’s oversight role not as a distant authority but as the conductor of a national orchestra.
In doing so, the Administration has strengthened the Republic’s capacity to execute.
Policy without machinery is theatre. Machinery without leadership is noise. This reform does not merely add another layer to government — it aligns the layers that already exist.
The political beauty of this reform lies not only in its efficiency, but in its inclusion. Governance, at its best, is plural. It draws on professionals — engineers, financiers, teachers, medical practitioners, planners, lawyers, community advocates — whose expertise outpaces any single political office. Boards are where that expertise lives. They are the republic’s reservoirs of competence. To elevate Boards into the governance structure is therefore to say something radical in Caribbean politics: that leadership is not threatened by shared responsibility, and authority is not weakened by consultation. It is amplified.
This is not governance by personality. It is governance by participation.
And it is politically courageous. Because inclusion is harder than command. It requires listening, deliberation, compromise, and continuous alignment. Yet it produces legitimacy — the currency of stable governments.
Perhaps the most overlooked feature of this reform is its intellectual posture. Embedding Boards institutionalizes learning inside government. Agencies closest to the operational realities — procurement challenges, staffing constraints, regulatory gaps, service delivery bottlenecks — now have a formal corridor into the policy bloodstream. This matters.
Too many governments design policy in abstraction and then blame institutions for failure. This Administration has done something smarter: it has allowed institutions to shape policy, not merely receive it.
That is what modern governance looks like.
It is what separates systems from slogans.
In an age where politics increasingly resembles performance, this reform does something refreshingly unfashionable: it builds.
It builds institutions rather than personalities. It builds capacity rather than controversy. It builds continuity rather than chaos. There is no glamour in governance. It is not trending content. It is architecture, and this Administration has been laying bricks. For the citizens who serve on Government Boards — often without spectacle, sometimes without thanks — this reform sends a blunt and welcome message: your work matters, and it is central to the States future. For public officers, it signals that execution is not an afterthought. It is governance. For technocrats, it announces a seat at the table — not as advisers on the balcony, but as partners on the floor.
For citizens, it offers something rarer than rhetoric: a structural promise that their services will be delivered through institutions that are seen, supervised, and systemically integrated.
Bringing Boards into the governance framework is also a powerful antidote to disorder. Where institutions operate in silos, drift emerges. Where drift emerges, inefficiency follows. Where inefficiency persists, public confidence erodes.
This reform attacks that cycle at its core.
It introduces coherence where fragmentation once lived. It enforces discipline where informality once thrived. It embeds Boards inside a framework that makes performance measurable and failure visible.
In short, it makes governance legible.
And in modern states like Antigua and Barbuda, legibility is the first defence against corruption, mismanagement, and political decay.
This reform is also a political statement — subtle, but firm.
It says: we are not afraid of institutions.
It says: we are not addicted to centralization.
It says: we believe governance works best when it is shared, supervised, and systematic.
In a region where strongman politics still tempts many administrations, this is a commendable alternative: strength through structure, authority through alignment, power through participation.
Conclusion:
Antigua and Barbuda continues to mature — not only politically, but institutionally. This reform accelerates that maturation. It tells citizens that their State is not improvising. It is engineering.
It tells public servants that their work is not peripheral. It is central.
It tells Boards that they are not ornamental. They are foundational.
And it tells the world that this is a country serious about governance — not as a catchphrase, but as a craft.
For that, the Gaston Browne–led Administration deserves constitutional applause and civic credit.
Because inclusion, when practised structurally, is not charity.
It is governance.
And governance, when done right, is nation-building. See you at the National Budget Presentation 2025.
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Also made the news so yiy are feeling left out.
Is fencing inclusion?
Are the houses on the hill inclusion?
Take that, you scamp!!
I want you to drive along that route a little more often so you can get early dementia.
You will see them however they will never be part of yoyr fortune.
Just hush, Mr Fencing man!
You forget we all know you and what you did? Harold Lovell is a hard headed man. If he had thrown your ass under the bus like he was adviced, you won’t be here now talking all this donkey grinds.
I was expecting this Opinion Piece purportedly written by Winston Williams no later than Monday. I think it was yesterday there was an article suggesting Molwyn Joseph and Cutie Benjamin should depart the political scene because they
have outlived their usefulness so to speak.
I remember when winston was with UPP his office was atop Gervie’s Bar, the guy doesn’t care one bit about people, I was there almost daily so I know what I am talking about. He would be a poor replacement for Molwyn Joseph, his sister is trying to make him look intelligent but it ain’t gonna work
It a good topic that we need to openly discuss as a so called democracy country. I read somewhere you used to term Republic to describe Antigua. The only country I know recently became a Republic is Barbados. Unless I don’t fully comprehend how you use the word. Please explain..
A few years ago one of the University of the West Indies professors wrote an article on this very issue. He said that boards should operate like a second string government. That boards can make or destroy an administration. I wish we had the time and space to look at each board, list the appointees and examine their qualifications and roles.
I am absolutely sure that in Antigua that the board are used to pay party supporters millions of taxpayers money to be rubber stamps. In most instances they are square pegs in round holes. Several civil servants to include directors , permanent securities and others use these appointments to jack up their incomes. Some serve on several boards.
I can bet if most of these boards are disbanded these statuary bodies will continue to operate without missing a beat.
Recently the Social Security Board was called into question, when the Prime Minister made the decision to invest Social Security money into Jolly Beach. That board by law and composition should have been one of the most powerful body. Yet it rubber stamps the decision. Not saying if the investment was good or bad. Just saying the Social Security Board of trustees had no input. JUST RUBBER STAMP. In the Gaston Browne Administration not even his ministers decides who sits on which board attached to most ministers. Anthony Smith has absolutely nothing to do with who sits on CMC board. Melford Nicholas has absolutely nothing to do with who is on ABUA Board- Right Luther? So in these instances the minister do not even operate like either of these boards exist. In fact the managers of these companies, corporations look down on these board members, don’t respect them and treat them like beggars. Right Millett /Kimba.
Again if the government wants to be accountable, they will choose the right people to run these boards. Allow them to do their work and hold them accountable as well. Nothing is wrong in placing your party supporters on boards but put them on boards where they can make a difference. That is good democratic leadership and politics at the same time.
When he first entered politics I honestly thought he was one for the future in Antigua, the more I got to know him the more I began to loathe him, some people can be so two faced
Are you trying to bolster Gaston image as the light has shown on similarities in st Vincent? Can you say APUA has a functioning board? Polly potter and clarvis Joseph still stand out. Mr potter was more hands on with the workers and infrastructural change while clarvis was just about infrastructural change, the ALP has revert back the APUA decision making to cabinet, the present ALP board is just a figure head where comrade are there for a salary and just proxy, none in the board posses any technical understanding to improve functions at APUA, peter Benjamin only became manager by default because Mr Piggott had leave APUA, Peter Benjamin had no contribution to APUA, he was merely robin and they ALP errand boy that engineered the destruction of APUA asset so there could be private power generation contactors.
Winston it make no sense appeasing Gaston in your falls fanaticism just for your economic survival.
I am a retired Civil Servant and have served on Boards by Statute. Each Board has a Governance and Function Act. It is not Rocket Science. Gaston Browne has done no inclusion. Every Board is supposed to follow it Parent Act and the Policy Framework of the Portfolio of which it is a part and submit a Business Plan along with it Audited Accounts to the Budget Officer for inclusion in the Annual Budget of Expenditure. Certainly, during the UPP Administration, the Boards that I worked on sought to do that.
So Winston, please? Don’t twist the pressure to be in the Gallery as being more than Gassy B “gallerying himself ” as the Trinis would say!!
Winston Williams, what are your plans? Trying to write an article with such content had to be a monumental task for you because you are incapable of doing such thungs.
This article is beyond your intellectual depth. You must say thanks to artificial intelligence.
Whatever you have been trying isn’t going to work you into being the ALP candidate in the next general election. E dont want you.
You have failed under the UPP and Gaston Browne is not about failures and losers but rather, achievers and winners. You need to remember how you treated people like trash while you were a minister in the UPP government. Time longer than rope, and so it catches up with you now.
The writer is basically reminding the government that representation isn’t symbolic. Policies have to reflect the full population, not just the familiar circle.
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