Golding's AG manoeuvres
Published:Friday | July 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner
Prime Minister Bruce Golding's failure to appoint his two first choices for attorney general has put him in a bind as he desperately seeks to find a replacement for Dorothy Lightbourne.
Well-placed party insiders told The Gleaner that Golding had intended to appoint Clive Mullings, an attorney by profession, as the next attorney general, but the plan fell through when Karl Samuda rejected the energy and mining portfolio, to which Mullings was subsequently returned.
The prime minister had also encountered obstacles with the appointment of Christopher Zacca as his second choice for energy minister and, having been forced to resort to Mullings, a man he had fired from the position two years ago, Golding's next choice for the attorney general's position was Hugh Small.
However, senior party members would have none of it, as pandemonium erupted in a meeting at which Golding announced the intended changes to his Cabinet.
JLP sources said members were incensed that the Golding administration would be resorting to a former prominent People's National Party (PNP) functionary.
"The tensions in the party are still high," a senior JLP member divulged yesterday.
Small infuriated PNP supporters earlier this year when he accepted the job as Golding's attorney in the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry.
JLP sources said that in a bid to extricate himself from the bind in which had found himself, Golding offered the foreign affairs portfolio, held by Dr Ken Baugh, to Samuda.
The former industry, investment and commerce minister also rejected that offer, as Golding seemed determined to hand that portfolio to former Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton.
Desperate golding
Desperate for a solution, Golding announced at the meeting that he would appoint Zacca as the minister of energy and mining.
However, the prime minister was confronted by another obstacle, as Aundré Franklin, who had resigned in late 2010 as permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health to concentrate on his new role as party general secretary, and Lightbourne were not prepared to relinquish their positions in the Senate to Zacca.
A former deputy chairman of the ATL Group of Companies, Zacca resigned after 18 years of service with his former boss Gordon 'Butch' Stewart and soon after took up a job as special adviser to the prime minister in 2009.
When Golding took away the liquefied natural gas (LNG) dimension of the energy portfolio from former Minister James Robertson, Zacca was appointed to head a government task force overseeing the LNG project.
Insiders say Lightbourne, who was replaced as leader of government business in the Senate with Dwight Nelson, refused to surrender her parliamentary position.
Golding said on Wednesday that an announcement would be made next week as to who will be the new attorney general.
The Gleaner understands that attorney Ransford Braham has been offered the attorney general post and is currently considering whether he will accept.