The government has named businessman and one-time Cabinet minister Claude Clarke to succeed the controversial Dr. Vin Lawrence as chairman of the two state-owned companies that hold Jamaica's bauxite lands and market government's share of the bauxite and alumina from joint venture facilities.

At the same time, Government has appointed Peter Bunting, executive chairman of the investment bank, Dehring, Bunting and Golding, as chairman of the island's trade and investment promotions agency, JAMPRO, a position that Clarke also held early in the decade.

Lawrence, a critical member of former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's kitchen cabinet and pivotal to several development projects, resigned from his substantive post of chairman of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and all his government appointments last month, following controversy over responsibility for cost over-runs at the Sandals Whitehouse hotel development in Westmoreland.

The development is a joint venture between the UDC, and another government agency, the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ), and Gordon "Butch" Stewart's holding company, Gorstew.

Among the boards vacated by Lawrence were Jamaica Bauxite Mining and the Bauxite Alumina Trading Company.

These two companies normally share common boards, thus the appointment of Clarke, the owner of Highgate Chocolate Ltd, who served as trade minister between 1989 and 1991.

Bunting, who served briefly as a member of Parliament and a junior health minister has also been chairman of the National Water Commission.