Title: Tribute To Sidney S. Collie
Tags:
Blog Entry: One year and two months has passed since the Free National Movement took the mantle of Government with the Rt. Hon. Hubert A. Ingraham at the helm as the party and country’s Commander-In-Chief. Immediately upon coming to office a number of decisions regarding Ministerial and other Government appointments were made, one of them being the designation of the Hon. Sidney S. Collie as Minister of Lands and Local Government. Like Prime Minister Ingraham’s recent appointment of Senator Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace as Minister of Tourism, the appointment of the Hon. Sidney Collie was a masterstroke. I have worked in the system of Local Government for the past ten years and four months through four Local Government terms, under six Administrators, two Chief Councilors and four District Councils. In that time, under the Free National Movement and Progressive Liberal Party Governments, I have seen Local Government transition from Department to Ministry to Department, sometimes leading and sometimes as an attachment. I have witnessed this portfolio change hands to different Ministers including the Hon. Vernon Symonette, the Hon. David Thompson, the Hon. Tommy Turnquest, the Hon. V. Alfred Gray and, the most esteemed of them all, the Hon. Sidney Collie. The resignation of Minister Collie from his position as Chief Executive Officer of Lands & Local Government dealt a major blow to all of the Departments under this Ministry, Local Government practitioners and employees throughout this country and the Central Government as a whole. Under his leadership Local Government made great advancements and the System implemented in 1996 saw unprecedented progress. Minister Collie led in his position with accountability, tenacity and transparency. He was down-to-earth and related well to the masses, particularly during his visits to the Family Islands. He was fair to everyone and showed no obvious favoritism to any particular person or group. He admired and encouraged hard work and diligence and he brought intense and sincere focus to every Department under him. He was particularly attentive the needs of his employees and the recipients of services under his assignment. Personnel morale improved greatly as reward for commitment to service became the order of the day within the Ministry. Minister Collie successfully took the system of Local Government to newer, higher and greater levels through ideas, programs and partnership initiatives implemented and fostered under his leadership. Local Government practitioners were confident that they had a Minister with whom they could communicate comfortably and the Honorable Minister never failed to respond to their beckoned calls. He assisted with concerns wherever possible to the point of forwarding communications to other Ministers or Ministries and engineering collaborations that proved beneficial to Local Government Town Areas and Districts. I am not privy to the details that resulted in nine (9) Districts being unable to exact Local Government elections on June 26 th , 2008, but I do know that Minister Collie made a masterstroke of his own when he took responsibility for his involvement and resigned as Minister of Lands & Local Government. I am confident that this was a difficult decision for him to make and I am also absolutely certain that if subordinates throughout the Ministry of Lands and Local Government and the many Local Government elected officials, appointees and staff members, had been aware of his intentions there would have been uproar - Minister Collie would not have been allowed to slip away as easily as he did . Minister Collie has left some big shoes to fill and it is going to be very difficult to surpass the precedence that he has established within the arena of Local Government. His humility, his honesty, his sincerity, his integrity, his diligence, his endurance and his commitment to excellence has only served to further strengthen his astounding legacy as a truly honorable man. I wish to extend sincere thanks and gratitude to the Honorable Minister for his influential, positive and unselfish contributions to Local Government. I wish him the best in his future endeavors, political or otherwise, and I look forward to him serving again in the Ministerial Cabinet of Government. Marvin R. Z. Gibson
VIEW FULL VERSION: Link