NHT Crisis
THE National Housing Trust (NHT) plunged further into crisis yesterday when two more members of the board of directors resigned, leaving the Government’s major housing finance agency with only enough members to form a quorum.
Trade unionists Kavan Gayle and Helene Davis-Whyte both handed in their resignations, casualties of the raging controversy over the Trust’s purchase of a tourist attraction, the Outameni Experience, in Trelawny for $180 million.
Their resignations come seven months after those of the Rev Oliver Daley, banker Minna Israel, economist Dr Davidson Daway and attorney-at-law Deborah Martin.
They had resigned in April following the sudden firing of Managing Director Cecile Watson.
The board needs nine members to form a quorum for meetings, which means that all sitting members — Chairman Easton Douglas, academic Robert Buddan, contractor and People’s National Party (PNP) activist Percival LaTouche, businessman and PNP treasurer Norman Horne, PNP Senator Lambert Brown, Jamaica Civil Service Association President Oneil Grant, civil servant Sonia Hyman, Jamaica Employers’ Federation CEO Brenda Cuthbert, and trade unionist Vincent Morrison — will have to be present each time for the board to sit.
“I would suggest that all board members recuse themselves, because right now as it is, I don’t think that the board can effectively continue with just nine board members,” Senator Gayle, who is president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), commented yesterday.
Davis-Whyte, who is general secretary of the Jamaica Association of Local Government, told the Jamaica Observer last night that she decided to resign to give the prime minister a free hand to name a new board, although there has been no indication that the board will be asked to resign.
She said that she had discussed the matter with members of her trade union, as well as her family, and came to that conclusion.
“We felt that at this time, it would enable the prime minister to act freely. That is the real reason,” she said. However, she said that she was not sure if other trade unionists on the board would do the same thing, although she was aware that Senator Gayle had also resigned yesterday.
“I don’t know if there are others who will. I can’t say, because I haven’t really consulted anybody (on the board). That was just my personal decision, having had the discussions with my union and my family,” she said.
Gayle told the Observer that there were two reasons for his resignation:
“I have been having consultations with my executive, and given the information that keeps coming out that were not presented to us during board meetings, as well as the public outcry against the procedures and the processes that led to this, I believe it requires a review,” he explained.
“I am calling for that review but, in doing so, I have decided as a board member to recuse myself from the board, to allow the prime minister a free hand to make the necessary changes in terms of the review and to correct any mistakes that may have been made,” he stated.
He said that the BITU’s management executive council was also concerned about the distraction that had been created by the controversial deal.
Yesterday’s resignation was a marked departure from the situation a week ago when NHT board members emerged from a six-hour-long meeting to discuss the controversy, saying that they would stand by the decision to purchase the property.
LaTouche said then that they were in “one accord”.
“We did not make any mistake, we have done our job and it (Outameni) will go down in history as maybe the best buy that we have ever made in the housing trust,” he said.
He said virtually no emphasis was placed on the criticisms from the Opposition as well as members of the public, about the purchase, at that board meeting.