DR Vin Lawrence’s dramatic plunge from grace echoed this week within the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) with his shock announcement of his resignation as party treasurer.

PNP general-secretary Colin Campbell confirmed last evening that Lawrence had stepped down with immediate effect as the party’s bookkeeper and biggest fundraiser, after a meeting with party president and prime minister Portia Simpson Miller and PNP chairman Bobby Pickersgill on Monday.

Campbell did not know what was the reason given by Lawrence in his resignation letter but said he had previously indicated that he planned to go, and had now brought the date forward.

Lawrence could not be reached by the Observer for comment and Pickersgill was said to be off the island.

Campbell, the information and development minister, also could not verify whether Lawrence would remain as a member of the PNP’s National Executive Council (NEC), the party’s highest decision-making body outside of annual conference.

“He is a member of the NEC by virtue of being the treasurer of the party. I will have to check that,” Campbell said in response to Observer queries.

Lawrence, reputed to be the most powerful non-elected public official across several PNP administrations, similarly tendered his resignation last week Monday as chairman of the influential Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and all other state boards which he headed, becoming the first major casualty of the controversial Sandals Whitehouse Hotel project.

The UDC was the major partner in the south coast hotel construction which is at the centre of a US$41-million cost overrun scandal that erupted following complaints from another partner, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart’s Gorstew, that the developers failed to deliver the property completed and fully functioning when the hotel opened in February last year.

Sandals, which manages the hotel, said it was forced to cut rates and refund hundreds of guests. The company also said the issue damaged its high-riding international Sandals reputation and has sued to recover its losses.

The third partner in the Whitehouse project is the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ) whose key directors have virtually gone into hiding from news reporters and talk show producers seeking to get comments about what they knew about the massive cost overrun.

Lawrence’s fall, after years of being seen as the power behind the PNP throne and key figure in the inner cabinets, began last week after the contractor-general accused the UDC of deliberately concealing information from his investigators and concluding that the award of contracts on the hotel project lacked transparency and competition.

Stewart, who said he shared the contractor-general’s concern about a lack of transparency, also complained that his company was kept in the dark about the cost overrun, despite strenuous efforts to get information from the project manager, the UDC.

Lawrence held the post of PNP treasurer for three years. In his various capacities, he has undertaken negotiations on behalf of the Jamaican government in several areas of economic activities such as bauxite and alumina, energy and tourism.

He negotiated the privatisation of several of Jamaica’s major companies, and on his spiritual side, served as the rector’s warden at the St Andrew Parish Church and a member of the church committee.

A 1967 graduate of the University of the West Indies in Engineering, Lawrence was honoured in 1998 by his alma mater as one of its distinguished graduates and was awarded the nation’s fourth highest honour, the Order of Jamaica, in that same year by the government.