That Wheatley appointment
IT has been a little while now but Prime Minister Andrew Holness still has a chance to attempt redemption, since he insulted the people of Jamaica with his support for embattled former minister Dr Andrew Wheatley.
It doesn’t matter how close the personal relationship is between both men. The key issue is that Jamaica’s, and not the Jamaica Labour Party’s business is given priority.
Wheatley messed up big time as the policy head of the ministry of energy. He now has to serve time in the pasture, which, hopefully, he will use to reflect and chart the way forward.
Therefore, now is not the time for Holness to suspend the grazing, by putting Wheatley to head a fact-finding team looking into poverty reduction in Jamaica. There are some things that do not make sense, and this is one of them.
At the rate at which Wheatley was going, it appeared that he was poised to put Jamaica further into poverty, what with his lavish usage of public funds while he served as minister of energy, science and technology, with direct responsibility for the State-controlled refinery, Petrojam.
Attorney-at-law Leslie Campbell is fit enough to chair such a committee. He should be elevated. In any case, Campbell should have been a part of Holness’ executive, as he would do a far better job than many of those who are there now, including as attorney general.
It’s bad enough to have the disgusting Everald Warmington still serving as a minister of state; it’s even worse to have fired Dr Wheatley (that’s what it was) and to have brought him back so soon to party in front of the people’s stage. That amounts to arrogance and disrespect.