Loading ...By the account of many when St Lucia Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet was a guest on his talk-show, host Rick Wayne was far from accommodating of the minister’s answers to questions about his management style. The minister’s performance on the show hardly got good reviews as Wayne jammed him with questions about his one-man-show tourism initiatives and questioned the success of at least three tourism-related events.
On Wednesday the minister opted to be a guest on Timothy Poleon’s NewsMakerLive. News this week that the tourism consultant hired to work at the St Lucia Tourist Board had jumped ship and had hitched a canoe to Aruba saw Chastanet having to do damage control. Rick Wayne’s ears were obviously tuned to the show because he addressed some of what Chastanet said on his Thursday show and weighed in on the Hepple issue.
“From the moment Hepple’s name was mentioned everyone got on the guy’s case,” Wayne said of the reaction of people he called “the headhunters of the previous administration” who objected to the consultant’s salary.
“According to Allen Chastanet the guy did not apply for the job, he brought the guy in!” Wayne recalled from Chastanet’s appearance on NewsMakerLive. “But everyone knew how much Hepple should have been paid. They don’t even know what the man’s job entailed. I was consistent on Hepple. I said ‘wait and see, the man is a work in progress.’ Just like Stephenson King is a work in progress, just like Kenny was a work in progress. You take them on faith! If they don’t perform, then after their contract is over you dump them. We don’t have to act like primitives on the radio calling on Hepple everyday. The guy has decided he has had enough and he can do better!”
Wayne said obviously not all of St Lucia was calling for Hepple’s head but “a group of politically bent people who have a right to talk but you would think that they would talk with a little bit of intelligence. I am not here to say whether Hepple was worth every penny he was paid. He was contracted to do it. Hepple was part of the government’s workforce. Are you going to go to every single government department and find out if every single civil servant is pulling his or her weight and is worth the money they are
being paid. It is asinine to imagine that you are in a position to determine for a government who they should pick for a job and how much they should pay him.”
Wayne’s final word on Hepple: “He was a substitute football to get at the government! You elected a government. If you don’t like how it is running the country talk about it. But you don’t jump on Hepple every single day! Hepple was not happy because even Hepple with the thickest skin in the world could not handle ignorant statements day after day from people he never met. The way we treated Hepple foreigners will think twice about coming to
work in St Lucia.”
RSS
I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Wayne on this. If you don’t like Mr. Hepple, blame the people who hired him, but don’t take pot shots at someone who is not in the political arena and can’t/won’t shoot back. It was very cowardly of the you-know-who to criticize Mr. Hepple. I think this was a good example validating a theme that Mr. Wayne (I think) put forth some time ago, that people in politics try to win by assuring that others fail (and to hell with the nation!)
Simple question….do you think Hepples did justice to the salary he was paid.
What do you think about his peformance over the period in question.
I really think Rick is for this government. Why can`t we not talk about the nothing Hepple did? The fact is nobody never came forward to say really what Hepple was doing to help the situation, and now his gone. We have the right to say whatever we want, just come on and let us what the hell he did to better these hard times.
Having some knowledge of the way Mr Hepple works, I am distinctly underwhelmed, however I agree 100% with Rick Wayne’s view.
Is this a lack of performance on the part of Hepple ? or a lack of P.R about what Hepple did ?
My suspicion is that Mr Wayne is clearly on UWP’s paylist. It escapes me, why he would want us to keep shut about the injustices exercised by this present administration.
We cant afford to pay our teachers, but we can give Hepple free money !
Simply put : Rick is pissing in our eyes and calling it rain.
I do not live in St Lucia, nor do I ever watch Talk. Even when I lived in St Lucia, I never cared much for Talk, though I religiously bought a copy of the STAR every Saturday.
I was however every bit annoyed, when I called St Lucia some weeks ago, and someone informed me that Rick Wayne was on Talk, branding everyone who opposed the appointment of Dr James Hepple an “ignorant” or a “party hack.”
I consider myself none of the above, so I was deeply offended by those statements. Everyone has a brain, and we do not always have the same opinions on any given subject of discussion. Disagreeing with someone else’s opinion does not merit anyone being called an “ignorant” and a “party hack.”
I still strongly believe that Dr Hepple was not needed in St Lucia, has contributed little to the development and marketing of the tourism industry on island, was unable to do any sort of internal marketing within his organization, and as such was a failure!
I would also like to specify here that my opposition is not to Dr Hepple personally, but to a non national Tourism Consultant, whoever he/she may be. I would still oppose the job being given to any foreign national, whether it be James Hepple, or Mr XYZ. I believe that the top echelons of our tourist board should be occupied by nationals. FULL STOP!!
Go to any country in Europe, and you do not see non -nationals in any key positions on their various tourist boards. YES, HAVING A ST LUCIAN PASSPORT SHOULD GIVE US CERTAIN JOB PRIVILEGES (SP?) IN ST LUCIA!
It does not matter if Aruba has now decided to offer Dr Hepple a job. This is in no way testimony that he did a good job in St Lucia.Chances are that even if Aruba had not offered him a job, he would still manage to secure himself another job, no matter how poor his last performance.That is just the way it works. CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies who have bankrupted these companies, still somehow manage to procure themselves other jobs. Con’t…..
Does that mean that they were any good at their last job?
*We need to stop behaving like abused women here. Yes, the abused woman who knows that the man is no good, but suddenly, when he is picked up by another woman, he immediately becomes “the best thing ever” in her eyes!
Aruba can do as they please; they are still financially aided by Holland. Last time I checked, they were still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They do not have to go begging for money from any other country!!!
As to foreigners not wanting to work in St Lucia, after how we treated Dr Hepple ? Any foreigner with half a brain will realize that there are over 100 foreigners resident and working in St Lucia. We have welcomed all of those individuals. Our opposition to Dr Hepple is the exception, not the norm!