Browne berates Social Security chairman, reveals he ordered removal

Algernon Watts

Prime Minister Gaston Browne has publicly berated former Social Security Board chairman Kem Tonge, ridiculing his performance during the Jolly Beach controversy and revealing that he ordered him removed from the position.

In a personal attack on a former government appointee, Browne accused Tonge of sitting silently through a contentious public meeting while Cabinet ministers were left to defend the proposed Social Security investment in Jolly Beach.

The prime minister said Tonge attended the meeting, took “copious notes” and said nothing, despite being chairman of the statutory body at the centre of the controversy.

“He didn’t utter a single word,” Browne said on radio Saturday.

Browne then disclosed what followed.

“Take him off the board,” he said, recounting the decision to remove Tonge from the Social Security chairmanship.

Tonge has since been replaced as chairman, but the circumstances surrounding his departure had not previously been laid out in such stark terms.

The Prime Minister complained that Tonge, despite holding a paid chairmanship, failed to publicly defend either Social Security or the merits of the proposed investment.

He said Tonge could at least have stood up and argued that Jolly Beach was a valuable asset, thereby challenging criticism of the deal and shifting the public discussion.

Instead, Browne said, Cabinet ministers were once again forced to take the political heat.

“Everything came right back to Gaston Browne and the Labour Party, the members of the Cabinet,” he said. “We always have to do all the fighting, and people who we pay, they don’t wanna fight.”

Browne also accused Tonge and the wider Social Security Board of disrespecting Cabinet by failing to attend a government-arranged visit to Jolly Beach during the dispute.

He said Cabinet, the country’s highest executive decision-making body, invited the board to inspect the resort, hear the government’s explanation of the proposed arrangement and assess the property’s potential for itself.

According to Browne, nobody came.

“Neither chairman nor other board members showed up,” he said.

He described the absence as “disrespect” and suggested the board had been influenced by opposition rhetoric surrounding the proposed transaction.

The revelations provide a rare glimpse into the pressure placed on statutory board members when major Government initiatives become politically contentious.

They also raise broader questions about the line between the independent oversight expected of statutory boards and the expectation, articulated by Browne, that chairpersons should publicly defend policies and transactions supported by Cabinet.

The Social Security Board was at the centre of fierce controversy over plans involving Jolly Beach as the government sought to address its substantial outstanding obligations to the pension scheme.

The government argued that placing income-generating assets in Social Security’s hands could provide the institution with a sustainable revenue stream while reducing the State’s longstanding debt.

Opposition figures and other critics, however, questioned the valuation of Jolly Beach, its potential returns, the financial risks involved and whether pension resources should be exposed to a tourism investment.

That public battle appears to have also produced significant friction behind the scenes between Cabinet and the Social Security Board.

Tonge has not publicly responded to Browne’s remarks.