PM Golding names 18-member cabinet

14.SEP.07

JAMAICA – PRIME Minister Bruce Golding on Wednesday evening named an 18-member Cabinet with few surprises but one indicating the new Jamaican leader is acutely aware of the enormity of the task of running Jamaica in a globalised world.{{more}}

A day after taking the oath of office, Golding crafted a government in which he kept the planning and development portfolio for himself and brought in one outsider to bolster Audley Shaw in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

Don Wehby, chief operating officer of GraceKennedy’s Financial Services Division, is one of two ministers without portfolio in the finance and public service ministry.

An accountant and the only political neophyte in the team, Wehby, who holds a Master of Science degree in Accounting from the University of the West Indies, is remembered for the fact that his GraceKennedy division chalked up pre-tax profit of 406 per cent, increasing from $280 million in 2000 to $1.417 billion in 2005.

Also appointed minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service is veteran trade unionist, Dwight Nelson, who will obviously be shadowing the public service element of the ministry.

Golding spent most of his first official day in office interviewing the prospective members of the Cabinet, as well as the persons likely to become junior ministers and senators before announcing his team in a release from the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the state communication agency.

Keeping a promise made on the election campaign trail, Golding appeared to have scrapped the local government ministry by not naming a minister, in pursuit of the party’s commitment to giving parish councils greater control over their operations.(Observer)