FORMER People’s National Party (PNP) deputy general secretary Maureen Webber has been named chairman of the state-run National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC), one year after she denied reports that she would be getting the job.

Information Minister Donald Buchanan told journalists attending yesterday’s post- Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House that a new board, chaired by Webber, was approved by the Cabinet.

Webber resigned as deputy general secretary of the party in May 2006. An economist, she served in the post for three years and was responsible for electoral activities, including last year’s internal elections which elected Portia Simpson Miller as leader of the ruling party.

A week later, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) spokesman on housing, Horace Chang, claimed she had been appointed chairman of the NHDC. Chang said that the appointment was “inappropriate” considering her recent links with the PNP.

Minister of Housing Robert Pickersgill then pointed out that applications for the position had two weeks to close (June 12, 2006), and that even though Webber had not applied, she had the right to do so.

Webber is also an adviser to Pickersgill in the Ministry of Housing, Transport, Water and Works, and chairperson of the National Advisory Board on Disability.

She is head of her own company, Development Options Limited, an urban planning firm.

Other members of the new board, which has been installed for three years from June this year, are Milverton Reynolds, Courtney Currie, Iford Bailey, Learie Myers, Michael Buchanan, Kemel Allen, Owen Blaise, Hopeton McCatty, Roderick Heaven, Manley Nicholson, Bishop W A Blair, Geneva Hibbert, permanent secretary in the ministry, and the president of the Federation of Provident Societies.

The board will assume responsibility for ensuring the activation of a number of Operation Pride projects, some of which had been dormant for several months, Buchanan said.

He said that 16 of these projects will be addressed this fiscal year, but he refused to name them.

The NHDC had been shrouded in controversy over the Operation Pride low-income housing project.