WEHBY

President of the Jamaica Chamber Of Commerce, Mark Myers, wants the Government to remove the apparent conflict of interest as it relates to the Cabinet appointment of Don Wehby, a former executive of GraceKennedy Limited.

"Whatever steps that need to be taken to make it as clear as possible to ensure that there is no conflict of interest, those steps should be taken so as to make sure that any of Mr. Wehby's action could not be misconstrued," said Mr. Myers yesterday when asked by The Gleaner to comment on the matter.

Mr. Wehby was last week appointed by the Bruce Golding administration as Minister Without Portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and Public Service.

Resigned

Since then Mr. Wehby has resigned from the boards of GraceKennedy and its subsidiaries in keeping with the provisions of Ministry Paper No.19/2002, which sets out the conduct of ministers.

Mr. Wehby will receive his full salary as a minister from government. However, GraceKennedy will pay Wehby the difference between his ministerial salary and what he previously obtained from the business conglomerate.

This has, however, drawn criticisms from the Opposition People's National Party, which has argued that there is a conflict of interest with Wehby's appointment to Government and his continued affiliation with GraceKennedy.

The Chamber of Commerce yesterday echoed the Opposition's concern.

"Remove the conflict by putting him on the public pay roll since he is in fact doing a public job," said Myers.

He, however, pointed out that he has no reason to question the integrity of Mr. Wehby, and pointed out that it is very difficult for one to divorce his/herself from their connections.

A difficult position

"It is kind of a difficult position to ask one person to be totally independent of anything unless you are going to end up with a person who has very little experience or little drive to get things done on a personal level," Myers said.

But, Omar Azan, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association has a different view on the matter.

"I look at it as GraceKennedy being a good corporate citizen and paying for part (of his salary)...,"he explained.

Mr. Azan said that he knows that Mr. Wehby is a man of integrity, but said there is a conflict of interest as he will be privy to information especially in the banking sector, which would be helpful to him if he were to go back to his company.

"Knowing Don, I don't think he would use it. I don't think he is a man who would ruin his integrity for that," he said.