{"id":37296,"date":"2013-07-15T08:15:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T12:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=37296"},"modified":"2013-07-15T08:15:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T12:15:31","slug":"delayed-ambassador-appointment-unusual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/07\/delayed-ambassador-appointment-unusual","title":{"rendered":"Delayed Ambassador Appointment \u2018Unusual\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The delayed confirmation of Dr. Elliston Rahming as Bahamas ambassador to the United States is unusual, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette said.<\/p>\n

Symonette said the government\u2019s silence on the issue is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

At his office on East Bay Street, he said the delay could be an embarrassment for The Bahamas. \u201cThe United States must be, in my humble opinion, sending a message why they haven\u2019t approved him yet and they need to tell the Bahamian people yes or no,\u201d Symonette said. \u201cWe put our name forward, and it hasn\u2019t been accepted.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually you choose someone who you know is acceptable, and so I think The Bahamas government owes the people of The Bahamas an answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very strange, and that\u2019s something we need to do.
\n\u201cBoth the minister of foreign affairs and the prime minister need to answer that question because one might pass the buck to the other and vice versa. Just come clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won on a question of transparency and consulting the people and everything else. Just tell us why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell has said that while Rahming has not been confirmed as ambassador to the United States yet, he has not been rejected either.<\/p>\n

Symonette, who was also deputy prime minister, said during his time in government it never took so long to appoint a Bahamas ambassador to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine the high commissioner for the UK was appointed, and that went through fairly quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot answering is giving the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo maybe what they should do is withdraw the application and consider someone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mean this in any way, [but] you have a man that is in charge of your prison system who you trust as a country with keeping criminals in jail,\u201d Symonette said.<\/p>\n

Rahming, the former superintendent of Her Majesty\u2019s Prisons, assumed his duties as the country\u2019s representative to the Organization of American States earlier this year.<\/p>\n

He is in Washington, D.C. Mitchell had said that he would speak on the issue of diplomatic appointments until July 1.<\/p>\n

A statement issued by the government on July 1 indicated that Prime Minister Perry Christie had directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with regard to the appointments of consuls general in Miami and Atlanta.<\/p>\n

But the ministry did not announce any names.<\/p>\n

The statement also said a further announcement will be made shortly about changes in personnel in the diplomatic service as soon as the necessary formalities have been concluded.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear which areas will be affected by the changes.<\/p>\n

By: Travis Cartwright-Carroll<\/span><\/em>
\nGuardian Staff Reporter<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The delayed confirmation of Dr. Elliston Rahming as Bahamas ambassador to the United States is unusual, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1867,1869,1870,1868],"class_list":["post-37296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-ambassador","tag-appointment","tag-confirmation","tag-elliston-rahming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}