Sir Molwyn Joseph, The Man Behind The Minister

When Parliamentarians rose in the House of Representatives on Friday to bid farewell to Sir Molwyn Joseph, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Nation and outgoing Member of Parliament for St. Mary’s North, the tributes that landed hardest were not about legislative achievements or ministerial portfolios.

They were about a man who was at a construction site at 1am, helped a burned young woman who needed to get to Guadeloupe, and a colleague’s dying sister in Colombia.

What the tributes from members of Parliament revealed was that Sir Molwyn Joseph would be remembered by his colleagues was what he did when no one was watching.

The Member for St. Peter Rawdon Turner was among the first to make that case. He described being part of a contractor team working a sewage repair job at the Ministry’s head office in the early hours of the morning, well before he had ever entered politics.

Through the darkness, he spotted a figure he did not immediately recognise.

“That can’t be Sir Molwyn,” he recalled thinking. “It’s one o’clock. No Minister of Government would be out this late.”

It was. Sir Molwyn spent the remainder of the night on site, not observing from a distance, but directing, assisting, and guiding the workers through to sunrise.

“When nobody was looking, when the camera was off, when everybody was fast asleep in their bed, you were out there working for the people of this country,” MP Turner said.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Sir Steadroy “Cutie” Benjamin, whose own bond with Sir Molwyn stretches back to the 1980s, recalled the then-aspiring politician arriving at his home on South Street wearing broad boots, denim jeans, and an army cap, declaring his intention to enter politics and serve the nation.

“What a wonderful picture he painted,” Benjamin said. He invoked Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, applying all three forms of greatness to his colleague: born great, achieving greatness, and having greatness thrust upon him.

Sir Steadroy credited Sir Molwyn specifically with steering the country through Hurricane Luis as Finance Minister in 1995 and with managing the national health response during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He recalled that during COVID, Sir Molwyn had been so furious upon finding workers idle at a construction site that he feared his colleague might physically intervene.

“I’ve never seen Sir Molwyn got so mad,” he said. He also highlighted Sir Molwyn’s role in introducing renal transplant services to Antigua and Barbuda, declaring that history would remember him for transforming health care in the country.

Minister of Education, Sports and Creative Industries Daryll Matthew, who has known Sir Molwyn since childhood in Jennings, described him as one of the most misunderstood figures in Antiguan politics.

His immaculate dress and commanding presence, Matthew said, led many to assume he was aloof, when the opposite was true.

Matthew recounted receiving a phone call from Sir Molwyn at 10 o’clock one night during the pandemic, mobilising the team to inspect two potential vaccination sites.

“It’s 11 o’clock at night and you should see him at eight o’clock in the morning,” then-Chief Medical Officer Dr. Rhonda Sealey-Thomas told Matthew. “This is how he is when he’s tired.” Matthew also spoke of Sir Molwyn’s deep commitment to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including spearheading donations for the Cedar Hall Moravian Church in Jennings.

MP for St. John’s Rural East Maria Browne offered perhaps the most personal tribute, describing Sir Molwyn as the “father figure” of Cabinet — a master listener who would sit quietly through heated debates before entering at the precise moment with the precise words to move the room forward.

She recalled being made to listen to his radio programme as a child and watching his parliamentary presentations with awe.

She also shared a deeply tearful moment of personal loyalty — Sir Molwyn showing up at her ministry at 8:30 in the morning, in solidarity when protesters threatened to block her office.

“Loyalty,” she said simply. “Sir Molwyn.”

Member of Parliament for Barbuda Trevor Walker, speaking from the opposition benches, acknowledged the tensions that naturally arise in parliamentary debate but said of Sir Molwyn that those repeatedly returned to Parliament must be doing something right.

“For people to re-elect you over and over again, you must have done something good,” Walker said, wishing him well on his departure.

The one discordant note came from Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle, who declined to deliver the glowing assessment offered by other members and used the moment to criticise the retiring MP.

Sir Molwyn himself used his final parliamentary address to thank God, his constituents, and his family and urged the country to think carefully about governance during turbulent global times.

He spoke of returning to Antigua from the United States in 1983, choosing to forgo American citizenship so he could serve his nation, and said he did not regret a single step of the journey.

He closed by issuing a call for a national conversation about diet and public health, warning that cancers, diabetes, and hypertension were now appearing in children, and that Antiguans must become their brother’s keeper.

His successor in St. Mary’s North will be Dr. Philmore Benjamin, whose candidacy Sir Molwyn said he fully supports.