Premier of Nevis Hon. Vance Amory
On the eve of the Team Unity Government’s 2nd Anniversary, Working for You hosted by Lesroy Williams featured Prime Minister Timothy Harris, Deputy Prime Minister Shawn Richards, and Premier Vance Amory.
Speaking on the matter of two salaries being awarded to Premier Amory and Deputy Premier Brantley, Premier Amory stated that “some persons would not look at the reality and history of the St. Kitts and Nevis relationship with integrity in themselves, their only effort is to try to discredit, when in fact, I have been a member of Parliament of St. Kitts-Nevis from since 1989. Before, there were members who were Ministers in Nevis, also Ministers in both and they were all paid their allowances, the salaries, whatever you want to call it and nobody made any fuss about it. Now I want to speak about my own instance, I’m sure the Honorable Mark Brantley’s instance could be parallel with that. Up to 2015 I was the Premier of Nevis, getting paid for the work I did there, I had my allowances here in the Federal Parliament with little or no responsibility apart from being a member. Now if you add to that membership of Parliament, serious responsibility as Minister, would it be fair to say that this person or whoever it is should not be remunerated? Now there are those who are saying well, they want to amend the constitution or amend the process that you cannot be a member of the Federal Parliament and the Nevis Administration. Now that’s a new concept, but the reality is some of the very people who are promoting this idea received payments for both functions.”
Referring back to the question of whether he would be able to perform all duties Mr Amory said “the performance which is now being manifested as Minister of Labor he gets called at 2:00 in the morning to deal with issues and that they do their duties and deliver changes since they took Government in 2013 when those who were there before were only doing one job. The Honorable Minister Mark Brantley is doing a job as minister of Foreign Affairs and doing a marvelous job for the people of St. Kitts and Nevis. And we have transformed the Ministry of Labor and Social Security into something which people now begin to respect and recognize that it is a meaningful part of the good governance agenda that people must understand what it means to be an employee and the conditions that govern working in a place”.