KINGSTON, Jamaica — Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, says she is “deeply saddened” by the death of renowned Jamaican Restaurateur, Minion “Sister Minnie” Phillips, former wife of leader of the Opposition Dr Peter Phillips.

“Sister Minnie was a strong Jamaica Rasta woman who was an expert at what she did and who showed great care for the people around her, not just for her immediate family,” Grange said in a statement this afternoon.

Minion Phillips, who died yesterday, was the proprietor of Kingston’s first ‘Ital’ restaurant, a popular establishment for Rastafarians, musicians and visitors.

“My sympathy goes out to her son Member of Parliament, Mikhail Phillips, and her other children and to Opposition leader, Dr Peter Phillips, her former husband,” Grange said.

She recalled that Sister Minnie, who described as a cultural pioneer had, “through the assistance of the Jamaican and Ghanaian governments returned to Ghana the remains of one of the former slaves, Lady Crystal, who had been brought to Jamaica, and Samuel Carson, an American whose remains were discovered by a group in New York.”