Chang quells concerns over NWC admin changes

Water and Housing Minister Dr Horace Chang has moved to squash speculation which has surrounded recent wholesale changes in the management of the National Water Commission (NWC).

With a new board being appointed last November and long-serving president E.G. Hunter leaving office at the end of 2010, several questions have been raised about the reasons for the changes.

However, in a release yesterday, Chang said the recent personnel changes were "part of a normal process of orderly succession and change in the continued development of an essential national organisation".

Chang noted that the new board was appointed after the three-year tenure of the former board ended.

The new board, which has been appointed for two years, is chaired by professional engineer and immediate past president of the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, David Chung.

It includes Wayne Jones, president of the Jamaica Civil Service Association, banker Rose Pilliner and Ransford Braham, an attorney-at-law.

Other members are businessman Mark Myers, attorney-at-law Dane Marsh, Dr Astor Bowers, Baron Stewart and Lennox Wallace.

In one of its first acts, the new board appointed the NWC's vice-president in charge of project administration, Albert Gordon, as interim president while Garth Jackson, who previously served as senior project manager, was moved to the office of chief engineer replacing another long-serving manager, Franklin Williams, who demitted office.

"I thank all the persons who have served in different capacities at the NWC," Chang said in his release yesterday.

"I am confident that the management team has the capacity to effect a seamless transition as the enterprise continues on a vigorous programme of streamlining major infrastructure investments, strengthen the management cadre (and) develop a proactive management culture ... ," the minister added.