President David Granger’s swift and decisive action, tersely announced, to terminate the appointment of Mr Brian Tiwari as a government adviser on business, dramatized an event that has titillated the political classes and has energized the media. It is clear that the President allows his officials enough latitude to get on with the job but that he also expects them as politicians, or holding political offices, to be sensitive to political currents so that they know when to consult or seek clearance for decisions which may have political ramifications. No one should now doubt that President Granger is prepared to boldly intervene, if and when he considers it necessary.
Brian Tiwari abandoned traditional methods and began to overreach since 1992. It made him into an enormously wealthy man. Refining basic skills of negotiation and transforming the magician’s mantra of ‘the more you watch the less you see’ into business strategies that won vast variations of already vast contracts, high prices for suddenly scarce quarry products, buying and selling land at enormous profit, acquiring and selling mining properties at even greater profit, BK International has grown into a diverse conglomerate.
With the adviser on business at its helm, the conglomerate is likely to have had an expectation of another ‘great leap forward.’ But this reversal will be seen as only a modest setback. Mr Tiwari will view this event as a ‘blip’ much as Darren Sammy saw the defeat of the West Indies by Afghanistan as a ‘blip’ and then roared back into life against India. BK, as he is popularly known, with his endless capacity for resourcefulness, may go below the radar for a while and