The final humiliation of brazen baroness?
Commonwealth chief, Lady Scotland, left fighting for job after move by heads of state
BARONESS Scotland faces a battle to cling on to her job as Commonwealth Secretary-General after heads of member countries around the world rejected an early proposal to offer her a second term of office.
The former Labour attorney general has been under pressure since a cronyism row led to countries including the UK suspending some funding for the international organisation earlier this year.
Lady Scotland, who has been nicknamed ‘Baroness Brazen’ and ‘Baroness Shameless’ for her lavish spending, has been in charge of the Commonwealth – which brings together 54 countries, many of them former British colonies – since 2016.
World leaders had been due to decide whether to approve extending her tenure by another four years at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda later this month after it was decided that she should not be handed an automatic extension.
When the summit was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was suggested that rather than wait for leaders to meet in person, her term could be extended now.
But Boris Johnson, who is currently the Commonwealth’s chairman-in-office as the UK was the last country to host the gathering in 2018, has written to fellow leaders to say there is no consensus for this plan.
In a letter sent earlier this week, he wrote that ‘ a significant and diverse number of colleagues from across the Commonwealth have communicated that they do not support that proposal’.
Baroness Scotland is now expected to be given a temporary extension until the date of the postponed summit, which has yet to be announced.
If her re-appointment is blocked when the meeting takes place, she will be the first holder of the post not to serve a second term.
Baroness Scotland, 64, has faced a torrent of criticism since taking over as secretary-general, including over spending £338,000 refurbishing her grace-andfavour apartment in Mayfair.
Her leadership was plunged further into crisis earlier this year when she was criticised by internal auditors for awarding a lucrative consultancy contract to a company run by a personal friend.
The Commonwealth Secretariat’s Audit Committee accused her of ‘circumventing’ the usual competitive tendering rules by awarding a £250,000 commission to KYA Global.
The firm, owned by fellow Labour peer, Lord Patel of Bradford, was contracted to carry out a review of the Commonwealth Secretariat.
The row led to the UK, Australia and New Zealand withholding £7million of funding until the organisation improves its financial procedures. She said the contract complied with procurement procedures at the time
A Commonwealth spokesman said: ‘The reappointment process occurs when leaders gather for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The Secretary-General came into post on April 1, 2016 for four years. The usual convention is that an incumbent seeking a second term in office is elected unopposed. ‘Baroness Scotland has been supported to serve a second term by Dominica, her country of birth. Commonwealth member states agreed to extend the current Secretary-General’s contract in order to consider the reappointment at heads of government meeting in Rwanda in June 2020. However, [the meeting] has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘A member state wrote to the chair in office to request that heads of government consider reappointment now, due to the uncertainty of when the meeting will be able to take place.
‘The chair in office wrote to member states on June 8, 2020 to state that consensus was not reached for reappointment to occur now.’
‘Significant and diverse’