By Robert A Emmanuel
Dwayne George has been returned to the Senate, this time with a new portfolio as Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance.
At a Government House ceremony yesterday, George was reappointed to the Parliament, after he resigned from the position two months ago to contest the October 24 by-election in St Mary’s South.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Gaston Browne said that he will take “personal responsibility” for Senator George’s development.
Following his appointment, Senator George said that he plans to use his experience in economics to enhance the country’s financial health.
“With my career and expertise in economics, my contribution to that would be significant because I do know the laws and principles of economics so I will be able to put policies in place to improve our economy, our GDP, our national income, so that more opportunities can be created for our younger folks, middle-aged and the elderly in Antigua and Barbuda.
Senator George reflected on his by-election loss stating that while he did “okay” in the short time he had to prepare his campaign, the fact that he crossed party lines to run for elected office had a negative effect on his chances.
“For my expectation, I did okay, I really wanted to win this seat and it was really difficult when I had to dig myself from out of the hole in two and a half months, it was extremely overwhelming…in the end, I didn’t win but, …I know I had a few things against me, coming from one party going into another party.
“The UPP was upset with me, and the ABLP was upset with me, and I had to bridge a lot of relationships between the ABLP and the UPP to garner the amount of votes that I did, and I think with a few more weeks, I would have been victorious,” he said.
This was also reflected in the Prime Minister’s comments during the ceremony where he commended George on growing the support for the Labour Party by “1.5 percent” in a few short weeks and said that despite plaguing issues of the high cost of living and high unemployment, the political party “grew its support in a seven to eight months period”.
“When you look at the results of the by-election, the Labour Party support grew by 1.5 percent, it wasn’t the five or five-and-a-half percent that we needed to win the seat, but at least it shows that the Labour Party is getting stronger,” the Prime Minister said.
Dwayne George got 891 votes in Tuesday’s poll, 29 more votes than Senator Samantha Marshall received in the January general election.
The senator, who was an economics teacher at the Antigua State College, will have to learn on the job as junior finance minister.
“I am going to learn on the job…so in time to come, I will know what to do and my mandate is to go out and do the people’s work to improve the economy,” he said.
The senator said that he will be focusing on increasing foreign direct investment in the country.
