Dominican born Baroness Scotland-the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth has been facing mounting pressure to resign according to reports in the daily mail.
About five days ago, a campaign started to have her removed because according to her opponents, Baroness Scotland, was playing ‘the Meghan card’ – a reference to claims that criticism of the Duchess of Sussex is partly related to her colour.
She was also criticized for alleged lavish spending and an auditor’s report last week castigated her over a £250,000 commission paid to a firm run by her fellow Labour peer Lord Patel.
This week Australia joined the revolt against her leadership of the Commonwealth.
It cut nearly £500,000 in annual funding for the group’s secretariat and said it would refuse to hand over the remaining £250,000 payment unless there was a financial shake-up.
Her four-year stint as secretary-general ends next month and Boris Johnson is leading moves to deny her a second term.
The Daily Mail revealed last week that Australia was considering pulling the plug on the secretariat.
The decision was confirmed yesterday by foreign minister Marisa Payne whose spokesman said the funding cut was in response to the auditor’s report and its criticism of Lady Scotland.
Miss Payne was furious last year when she discovered Lady Scotland had invited world leaders to a cricket match in Australia without first informing the government in Canberra.
She complained in writing to Lady Scotland, accusing her of lacking ‘basic courtesy’ and ‘inappropriate’ conduct.
The move by Australia is the latest in a series of setbacks to the 64-year-old baroness including being forced to close a ‘Commonwealth Hub’ in London as a result of the secretariat’s cash crisis. Dedicated to the Queen, the centre had been open for only four years.
New Zealand has axed its annual grant of nearly £2million saying it had ‘no confidence’ in Lady Scotland. And similar reasons are reportedly behind Canada’s refusal to re-instate Commonwealth funding axed in 2013 – despite pleas by Lady Scotland.
A crisis board meeting of the Commonwealth Secretariat last week turned into a race row with claims by some black nations – including Nigeria and Namibia – that the peer was being targeted because of her colour.
Critics of Lady Scotland, pointed out that of her five predecessors in the prestigious post, three came from Guyana, Nigeria and India.
Well-placed sources say her conduct at the secretariat has been criticised privately by diplomats from South Africa and Ghana.
The Secretary General was branded ‘Baroness Shameless’ and ‘Baroness Brazen’ after it was disclosed in 2016 that she spent £338,000 refurbishing her grace-and-favour apartment in Mayfair, central London.
It later emerged that £590,000 of the UK’s foreign aid budget had been spent on Marlborough House, the secretariat’s headquarters, in two years.
The baroness was also criticised for appointing political allies to key posts. And a senior official forced to quit his secretariat job while working under Lady Scotland won nearly £300,000 in compensation.
International leaders have agreed to give her a stay of execution until the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda in June where a final decision on her future will be made.
However, some senior figures believe her position has become untenable and that she should step down earlier.
Mr Johnson is said to be backing moves to persuade Amina Mohamed, a 58-year-old Kenyan politician, to challenge Baroness Scotland for the £160,000-a-year job. Born in Somalia, she learned English by reading Sherlock Holmes novels as a child.
She studied at Oxford and is a qualified lawyer.
Give her salt to pass in her mouth.
As granny would say, “Be careful what you wish for..”. YOU told us to, “susay cel”, be careful that’s not how you end up….!
Oh I see, Think the UK is like Dominica when you can do what you want and tell people if they doe like it to “Suck salt”.
My lady best advise for you, resign from them people job, come back to Dominica, as soon as you touch down, your friend the PM, will make you either a Minister, Diplomat, or Ambassador. You get your passport, you go back to UK and live in your lavish villas. What again you need nuh?
Baroness Scotland: UK suspends funding to Commonwealth Secretariat https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51467686
Now here is a Commonwealth Secretary General from the Caribbean who made us all proud to be West Indian during his time in office: Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal GCMG AC ONZ OE OCC QC, often known as Sir Sonny Ramphal, is a Guyanese politician who was the second Commonwealth Secretary-General, holding the position from 1975 to 1990. Patricia if you had grown up in the Caribbean like me, you would have learned a thing or two about class, diplomacy and decorum from this great Caribbean man! But they do not make Caribbean leaders like these anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shridath_Ramphal
Time addresses “Tout Baghai”. Scumz like Scotland, Obama and others, are used, then discarded, when their DIRTY work is done. The Blood on Ms Scotland’ hands, the Waters of the So-Called three hundred and Sixtyfive Rivers of Dominica, is not enough to cleanse her. People of Ms Scotland’ caliber, only realizes that they have a different skin pigmentation when the carpet is pulled from under their unbalanced feet.Their is presently no room for Ms Scotland, in this new wave of Britain Conservatism, She has served her Colonial Masters very well, and like many before, Reality is always the last thing seen.
Bob, time to go and see dr. Benjamin, seriously man. F
Sousay sel must go!!
I remember CARICOM was seriously divided when Skerrit insisted that this woman should be elected. Skerrit totally disregarded a unified CARICOM approach to that issue.
Skerrit couldn’t clear her name…. just like he couldn’t for Madueke and Monfared.
Take your walk of shame!!!
As a woman myself I rather suck salt than suck rock or iron because apart from both rock and iron are hard and can break people’s teeth they can be very dirty and stinky too
What did you guys expect. She hang with crooked money swiping people in Dominica (AKA hungry Hayinas) and was forced in by the corruption king the one and only Jack As… Skeritt. They come from the same flock.
Just for supporting Lennox Linton and the UWP, she sent me to sue sa sel (suck salt) and unfortunately I know what I would tell her to go sue sa but I know DNO will not allow me to so let me hush
Do worry with dno, you can inbox me what you would tell her to go sue sa
I don’t understand what you trying to say Letang but I know you back to front.
Those who live in glass houses should NEVER throw stones!!!!!!!!
What goes around, comes around.
What you sow, that’s exactly what you REAP.
NEVER bite the hand that feeds you.
We MUST be very CAREFUL what we wish for others.
Did you think that you were INVINCIBLE?
Now, who is SUCKING salt?
I DO NOT feel sorry for you?
UNAPOLOGETIC
Well if one can truly take for gospel the daily mail eh Ben weh papa. This is the worst racist paper that i’ve ever come across.
Oh go fly a kite Sybil. Patricia Scotland came to England with nothing, a white country that pay for her education and allow her to rise to the top. She even marry a white barrister. Is England that make all that possible for her and finally she represent the Queen as head of the commonwealth. I don’t know that paper, but is not because of racism they don’t want her again. She embarrass not only England but us who wanted to be proud of her. She has not helped our cause at all but her selfish ambition alone. Yes, as a Dominican I feel betrayed by her.
Sybil, this time you are right! I have read from other sources, even someone living in England, that the “Daily Mai”l does like the Lady Baroness Scotland. She may have some faults, just as all human beings do, but that “news medium” has been castigating her reputation from the time she was appointed to that role.
Elisabeth, you are dead wrong. It is not only this newspaper that is questioning her suitability. Questions were raised in many quarters including our own Caribbean and it was only her buddy Skerrit who endorsed her candidacy. She first caused a stink when as Attorney General she employed an illegal alien in her house and lie about it and was fined, I believe 5000 English pounds. Then she did a big job for big pay for a illegal regime in the Seychelles. And we must ask, was she in any way connected with the issue of a diplomatic passport to the oil minister of Nigeria. Whatever your politics a person like that can not represent the Queen as head of Commonwealth.
@ Sybil, why are you guys so misleading? If you feel the daily mail is racist and therefore there report should not be trusted then here is the same thing from a different source: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/australia-slashes-funding-for-commonwealth-over-cronyism-scandal-20200208-p53yxf.html
The BBC is not the daily mail. ‘The British government has suspended its funding of the Commonwealth Secretariat, the body that runs the international organisation from London, the BBC has learned.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51467686
Well if you dont like the Daily Mail, a simple google search brought up tons of other articles you could read from. Be an educated person, don’t just blindly defend, and remove your head from the sand.
You hearing the lady spend over 500,000 pounds (I dont even know how much EC is that but i imagine alot) renovating houses, but you still dere?
I really hope she bring you and visit it one day lol
We sucking salt in Dominica.
Go salt your salt too and tell us how it tasting to….
Look who sucking salt now.
Karma is a bi…. People often forget that.
Another cooked friend of Skerrit, another crooked Dominica! As soon as she gets the sack, she will be appointed a new minister in Skerrits government!
The lady must beleave that she is in Dominica where there is no accountability. It is so sad that a black woman given the opportunity to serve at the highest level find it fitting to bring shame on herself and the institution, so sad
Who is sucking salt now?
Well, I am a very proud UWP supporter but I NEVER susay cell (Sucked salt) as predicted and desired by Baroness Scotland. However she being a supporter of Skerrit seems to be susaying (sucking) a lot of salt. Boy seems like she sucking more than salt. I just hope she does not have to suck nobody’s dumpling.
madam ‘sue sa sel’ going to salt salt it seems
susay cel madam !
She’s embarrassing, such a classless person who should never have been put into that position. Such a shame that she has brought such disrepute to the country and to the Commonwealth. To think our leader was plotting to ensure she got into this position, what kind of thing is this? Oh my… resign and reclaim a little respect.
Birds of a feather flock together. Think UK going and tolerate your nonsense still. Only place that settling for foolishness is here in Dominica. But you will sousay sel like the rest of us
The chickens are çoming home to roost. Bye, Bye Baronmess Scotland. You have shamed the Caribbean region, the island of Dominica in particular and the UK which sponsored you. What sweet in goat mouth go sour in it’s bambam. Now go suck salt Patricia because the legacy of your tenure will live on. Shame on you.
Seems like those that cursing Hon Lennox Linton for saying STEALING is wrong, their curse falling on them man. One cursed the dream of Linton’s aspirations for being Prime Minister and low and behold he didn’t live to see Linton become PM. Sue sa sel Baroness Scotland sent Linton and his supporters to go suck salt and next thing is she that sucking salt and soon she might find herself sucking rock and iron. But let me remind her that both rock and iron are very hard so becareful she doesn’t break her teeth sucking them.
Is it just me? another one bite the dust!! or more appropriately sucking salt!!!! What is most baffling is all the appointees supported by the Dr Skeritt’s government who have come to the world’s attention, came to notoriety not from the quality of their work but from their association with money, mostly it’s misappropriation and the abuse of the people’s trust.
Does this appropriately define our Dominican leadership and its legacy? or are we like Skinny Banton, the calypsonian from Grenada, singing; What I do wrong again Laud? What I do wrong again? Or is it simply a case of the chickens coming home to roost!!