The chief radiographer, Chevonne Stewart, has been reassigned to the Ministry of Housing until December.
Opposition Leader Godwin Friday says the move is intended to improve her prospects as she is poised to become the ruling Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) candidate in the Southern Grenadines in the upcoming general elections.
An April 30, 2025, memo from the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Nerissa Gittens to the heads of all programmes and units, said that Stewart had been assigned to the Ministry of Housing, Informal Human Settlement, Youth and Sports from April 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.
Speaking on his party’s radio programme, Friday said that the ULP was putting up Stewart as a candidate in Southern Grenadines “to get licks from Terrence Ollivierre”.
Ollivierre, of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), has been representing the Southern Grenadines since 2001.
He is slated to seek a sixth consecutive term in general elections expected to be held by November, but constitutionally due by February 2026.
“These guys are so shameless,” Friday said, adding that the chief radiographer performs an essential service that deals with reading your X-ray and MRI
Friday also said that sometimes when people go to a healthcare facility, there is no radiographer on duty.
“Well, they’re moving her from that position for which I assume she has been trained to deliver that service, to put her in the Ministry of Housing,” the opposition leader said.,
“And why? They’re getting some prefab houses from Trinidad for Beryl relief, so they’re putting her in that ministry there now that she can have a say in who getting the houses in the Southern Grenadines?”
Friday said that while he does not know about Stewart’s work, he assume that she being the chief radiographer, has done her job well in the past.
“So you move her from there, just out of political convenience, and put her in the Ministry of Housing, because you have her as candidate in Southern Grenadines. They have houses to distribute and lumber and galvanise, as she been doing, going around and telling people, taking names and telling people about who could get what and so forth. This is what I’m told,” the opposition leader said.
Friday said that the government has put Stewart in the Ministry of Housing so she can be visible when housing relief is being distributed.
“I mean, honestly? Political expediency and convenience over the professional service of some essential person in the Ministry of Health? … That’s the calculus that they think is worth it? Come on! This is just simply — it’s cynical, and the people of this country should just simply say, ‘Enough of this nonsense.’
“You can’t have a country that professes to be a progressive country in the modern world behaving like this. Anywhere else you do that in any country, any other democracy, … people will say, ‘No. This is just simply a misuse of how the public resources, meaning the personnel, is being done.’”
Friday said Stewart’s transfer was “clearly a case of political expediency.
“You transfer somebody from a Ministry of Health who’s performing as chief radiographer in a central service in the Ministry of Health, an important service in the Ministry of Health, in the field in which she has been trained, and putting her in the Ministry of Housing to one distribute lumber and galvanise because election is coming up.”
Ralph Gonsalves is pulling all the stops. This is a desperation move. He will insult everybody’s intelligence to score an election win. And he coming with simple things that if you not paying attention you won’t realize it. When will Ralph realize he is old and aging. The people know his track record already. What a thing.
This is almost as distasteful as Ms. Stewart politicizing Mothers’ Day. SMH!
SVG is a joke.