Minister of Foreign Affairs E.P. Chet Greene wasted no time putting Antigua and Barbuda's two newly appointed Ambassadors-at-Large to work, dispatching them on international assignments within hours of their swearing-in ceremony.
According to Antigua.news, Greene announced at the investiture ceremony — held at Government House on Monday morning — that Ambassador Samantha Marshall would represent Antigua and Barbuda at the EU-CARIFORUM summit in the Dominican Republic on June 21, while Ambassador Joanne Massiah would travel to Panama to join Sir Ronald Saunders as part of the country's delegation to the Organization of American States (OAS) and Association of Caribbean States (ACS) conferences.
Greene framed the immediate deployments as deliberate, telling those gathered that the Foreign Service demands readiness at a moment's notice.
"A problem pops up in CARICOM and you are called to go down to Guyana. In the OECS you are called to go to St. Lucia," he said, adding that the ambassadors needed to "get a feel of what the Foreign Service really is all about" from the outset.
The ceremony was presided over by Governor General's Deputy Sir Clare Roberts, before whom both women took oaths of allegiance, office, and secrecy before receiving their instruments of appointment.
Marshall is a former member of parliament for St. Mary's South and the first woman elected to parliament under the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party banner. Massiah is a former senator and attorney-at-law. Both were appointed as ambassadors-at-large — a designation that carries no fixed geographic posting but allows the government to deploy them across multiple jurisdictions on special assignments.
Greene also acknowledged the cross-partisan dimension of the appointments, noting that Massiah had most recently served as a senator for the opposition United Progressive Party. He framed her inclusion as consistent with Prime Minister Gaston Browne's stated goal of building "a single nation" through meritocratic service.
