Edmond Campbell and Ross Sheil, Staff Reporters

Campbell

Forced out of the Cabinet and his job as general secretary of the ruling People's National Party for misleading colleagues about the Trafigura affair, Colin Campbell suggested yesterday that he intends to cling to his seat in the Senate, the unelected chamber of the Jamaican parliament.

"I have not been asked by anyone to resign, so I will remain in the Senate," Campbell told reporters as he emerged from his final Cabinet meeting, clutching his leather ministerial portfolio.

Disclosure demanded

At the same time, the government was under pressure to provide further information on the scandal, with the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) demanding full disclosure of the relationship between the government and Trafigura Beheer, a Dutch commodity trader and a call for police investigation by Opposition shadow finance minister, Audley Shaw.

Yesterday, the briefing of journalists after the weekly meeting of Cabinet, normally taken by Campbell, was conducted by tourism minister Aloun Assamba and foreign Minister, Anthony Hylton.

They claimed that the Trafigura affair did not figure much in Cabinet discussions. The major discussion was around the government's planned $635 million national clean-up campaign.

First casualty

Campbell was the first casualty of the scandal involving what Trafigura, which now implies that approximately J$31 million it lodged in August to a bank account controlled by supporters and officials of the PNP, was a political donation, having initially said it was payment for services.

The lodgement was only weeks before the government's Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) renewed an oil trading deal with Trafigura.

Senior government officials had sharply attacked the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, when, using leaked cheques drawn on FirstCaribbean International Bank, it revealed the Trafigura connection, but by the weekend the administration was in retreat.

Not only did Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller state that her party would give back the money, but Campbell was forced to resign his government and party posts.

"Having regard to the size of the contribution, it is regrettable that I had not shared the full details with you (Simpson Miller), the chairman and the legal advisor or any other officer of the party," Campbell said in his resignation letter. It has not yet emerged what he failed to report.

Those are among the issues which the JCC has insisted must be answered. The group had gained the wrath of the ruling party, which had pointed to the Opposition political link of its president Mark Myers, who had signed the initial statement.

"Among the questions we believe need to be addressed are those that relate to the total nature of the relationship with Trafigura Beheer, given the fact that the information that the company has provided has evolved somewhat since its financial backing was first described as a "donation"," said the Chamber in statement yesterday. This one was signed by Myers and his four deputies.

Yesterday, a Trafigura spokesman at the firm's headquarters in Amsterdam, declined to go beyond its second statement about the relationship between the company and the PNP affiliated company to which it transferred the money. He suggested that the initial statement, which spoke of a commercial relationship, was hurriedly fashioned in the absence of senior officials.

"That (the first) statement was made late on in the evening when very few people were around," he said. "That is superseded by this."