PETER Bunting’s swearing-in as the eighth Opposition senator is scheduled for 10 this morning at Gordon House in downtown Kingston.

In addition to being appointed a senator, Bunting will assume the roles of leader of Opposition business in the Senate, replacing Senator Donna Scott Mottley, and Opposition spokesman on national security.

Bunting, who lost the challenge to replace former Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips by 76 votes in 2019, is a former minister of national security (2012-2016). He also lost his Manchester Central seat to rookie Member of Parliament Rhoda Moy Crawford of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the September 3 General Election.

He was named to fill the new vacancy in the Senate, which was created by businessman Norman Horne’s eventual decision to resign his appointment as one of Dr Phillips’s nominees, following the exposure that he is still a United States’ citizen.

Bunting, who led the ‘Rise United’ camp in the 2019 Phillips’ challenge, was considered the main contender to replace Phillips up to his loss to Crawford in September. His business partner Mark Golding took up the challenge to contest the leadership race against the pro-Phillips’s Lisa Hanna, and defeated her by 296 votes among party delegates on November 7.

Golding, who was a member of Bunting’s Rise United group, has been a close confidante and business partner of Bunting since 1992 when they co-founded Jamaica’s first private sector investment banking firm, Dehring, Bunting and Golding, now Scotia Investments. They later became the main partners in Proven Investments Limited, but both resigned from the board in 2012 after being assigned Cabinet positions in the new People’s National Party (PNP) Government led by former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, and also gave up their seats on the board of subsidiary Proven Wealth Limited.

Bunting also served as general secretary of the PNP between January 2008 and January 2014.

Prior to entering politics, he was a personal advisor to former Prime Minister Michael Manley in 1990, and was appointed CEO of the Development Bank of Jamaica. He represented the PNP as Member of Parliament for Clarendon South Eastern (1993-1997) and Manchester Central from 2007 to 2020.

Today’s Senate agenda, for the last meeting of that House for calendar year 2020, also includes debates on the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) (Special Provisions Act, 2020; the Evidence (Amendment) Act, 2020; the National Housing Trust (Amendment) Act; the Financial Administration and Audit Act; the Income Tax (Amendment) Act; the Banking Services (Designated Financial Services) (Business of Buying and Selling Foreign Currency) Act, 2020; and the Banking Services (Designated Financial Services)(Provision of Electronic Retail Payment Services) Order, 2020.

— Balford Henry