JOAN Gordon-Webley, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate who made an unsuccessful bid for the South-East St Andrew constituency in the September 3 general elections, could be the next head of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), the Observer has learnt.

If she accepts the offer, Gordon-Webley – who rejoined the JLP last year after leaving the party in the early 1990s to run as an independent candidate before serving as vice-president of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) – will succeed Christopher Powell, who was on secondment at the waste management agency as executive director since December last year.

On Monday, state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister in charge of local government reform, Robert Montague, would neither confirm nor deny the information.

“The prime minister will make an announcement about the head of the agency and the composition of the board in due course,” was all he offered.

Yesterday, the local government department of the Office of the Prime Minister issued a release naming Loraine Robinson, the former permanent secretary in the local government ministry and former deputy chair of the NSWMA board, as the agency’s interim head. According to the statement, Robinson’s appointment, which became effective on Monday, will expire on November 5 when Prime Minister Bruce Golding is expected to announce a new executive director as well as the agency’s new board.

In a meeting yesterday with the agency’s senior managers where Robinson was introduced in her new capacity, Montague spoke about the repairs to be effected to the NSWMA’s fleet of vehicles and to the weight scale on the Riverton landfill. He also touched on the subject of the new landfill to be developed in Portland.

Meanwhile, Montague said Powell was transferred from the NSWMA in light of the valuable contribution he could make to the reform process and to the local government department’s goal of achieving its objectives within 24 months.

“Mr Powell was recalled to his substantive post in the reform unit where his expertise can better be employed,” Montague said.

Powell, who has been granted a week’s leave before taking up his new post, told the Observer he wasn’t sure whether he would be returning to his position as team leader of the reform project.

But a senior staff member at the waste management agency said that he informed the staff at a 9:00 am meeting last Friday that he would be taking up the position of senior director of planning in the Office of the Prime Minister.

On Monday, the former NSWMA executive said he was only informed of the changes late last Thursday and that he was instructed to leave his Half-Way-Tree Road office by 10:00 am on Friday.

“I was told that my assignment would not be extended and that I was to take a few days off,” he said.

Asked whether he felt shortchanged or disappointed in any way as a result of the reassignment, Powell replied: “I had some things I had started to work on, but it’s a pretty fluid job. It’s tough being executive director of the NSWMA. It’s just one of those things.”

Powell’s reassignment was ordered in the same week that an audit into the agency’s procurement policies was reportedly brought to a close. He is confident, however, that the audit, which should be presented to Minister Montague this week, unearthed no signs of impropriety.

“No hanky-panky was found in the audit,” he said.