PRIME Minister Bruce Golding last evening named an 18-member Cabinet with few surprises but one indicating the new Jamaican leader is acutely aware of the enormity of the task of running Jamaica in a globalised world.

A day after taking the oath of office, Golding crafted a government in which he kept the planning and development portfolio for himself and brought in one outsider to bolster Audley Shaw in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

Don Wehby, chief operating officer of GraceKennedy’s Financial Services Division, is one of two ministers without portfolio in the finance and public service ministry.

An accountant and the only political neophyte in the team, Wehby, who holds a Master of Science degree in Accounting from the University of the West Indies, is remembered for the fact that his GraceKennedy division chalked up pre-tax profit of 406 per cent, increasing from $280 million in 2000 to $1.417 billion in 2005.

Also appointed minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service is veteran trade unionist, Dwight Nelson, who will obviously be shadowing the public service element of the ministry.

Golding spent most of his first official day in office interviewing the prospective members of the Cabinet, as well as the persons likely to become junior ministers and senators before announcing his team in a release from the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the state communication agency.

Keeping a promise made on the election campaign trail, Golding appeared to have scrapped the local government ministry by not naming a minister, in pursuit of the party’s commitment to giving parish councils greater control over their operations.

But how services like the Fire Brigade and National Solid Waste Management Authority will function in this new formula was not immediately explained. Among the other noteworthy features of the Golding Cabinet is the inclusion of two women ministers in Dorothy Lightbourne who will become attorney-general and minister of justice through the Senate, and Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange who gets a second chance at information and culture through the Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports.

Lightbourne grabs a position that was expected to go to Delroy Chuck who was the spokesman on justice but was instead named as the MP who will be nominated as Speaker of the House.

Fresh faces in the configuration include Dr Christopher Tufton who has been given the agriculture portfolio, a clear indication Golding wanted to plant the seeds of youth and vigour in a largely Cinderella sector.

The prime minister defied predictions by the pundits in naming Dr Kenneth Baugh minister of foreign affairs and trade, instead of minister of health, his old portfolio in the 1980 Cabinet of former Prime Minister, Edward Seaga. Baugh, expectedly, will also be Golding’s deputy prime minister.

Two big winners are Dr Horace Chang, minister of water and housing and Clive Mullings, minister of energy, mining and telecommunications, two of three ministers named from St James constituencies, the third being Edmund Bartlett, minister of tourism.

Chang, a former parliamentary secretary for health in the 1980s Seaga administration, figured in the so-called Western Eleven who openly opposed Seaga in the mid-1990s. But he patched things up in the ensuing years and remained a loyal party man.

Mike Henry, after a long journey through the wilderness, in which he almost lost membership in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), is back, this time as transport and works minister.

As expected, Derrick Smith gets Peter Phillip’s job as minister of national security. Golding’s brother-in-law, Pearnel Charles goes to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, while another veteran trade unionist, Rudyard Spencer, goes to the health and environment ministry.

Charles who served as local government and then public utilities and transport minister in the 1980s, also had a falling out with Seaga, keeping his place in the JLP through successful court action.

Karl Samuda, the JLP general secretary is the new minister of industry and commerce, a job he tasted as a junior minister in a previous JLP administration of the 1980s and later in a PNP administration, from which he resigned in 1993, later returning to the JLP. Also no surprise, Andrew Holness was given the job as minister of education.

Rounding out the 18 is James Robertson who will work closely with Golding as minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister.

The full Cabinet, which will be sworn in on Friday morning at 11:00 o’clock is as follows:

. Bruce Golding, Planning, Development and Defence

. Dr Kenneth Baugh, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade

. Audley Shaw, Minister of Finance and the Public Service

. Derrick Smith, Minister of National Security

. Dorothy Lightbourne, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice

. Andrew Holness, Minister of Education

. Karl Samuda, Minister of Industry and Commerce

. Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism

. Dr Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture

. Clive Mullings, Minister of Energy, Mining and Telecommunications

. Dr Horace Chang, Minister of Water and Housing

. Pearnel Charles, Minister of Labour and Social Security

. Rudyard Spencer, Health and Environment

. Olivia Grange, Information, Culture, Youth and Sports

. Michael Henry, Transport and Works

. James Robertson, Minister without Portfolio (Office of the Prime Minister)

. Don Wehby, Minister without Portfolio (Finance and the Public Service)

. Dwight Nelson, Minister without Portfolio (Finance and the Public Service)