THE appointment of Dr Carlton Davis for a second stint as chairman of the National Housing Trust (NHT) board is most welcome and an obvious move by the Government to burnish the image of the directorate that has been badly damaged by recent revelations.

Dr Davis, a former Cabinet secretary and model public servant, has an impeccable reputation as a professional whose integrity is beyond question.

We expect that, under his direction, the NHT will recover from the severe battering it received over the Outameni purchase that came to public attention late last year, and this week’s release of the auditor general’s report that revealed questionable land purchases and investments by the NHT over several years.

In fact, how Dr Davis deals with the auditor general’s report will give the country an indication of the direction in which he intends to steer the Trust. For that report contains a number of issues that need serious and swift attention.

While we accept that a smart way for the NHT to make money is to invest, that investment should not be allowed to go to waste because of inaction, as was pointed out in the auditor general’s report in relation to the Jamaica Lifestyle Village which cost taxpayers $63 million.

We can’t argue with the people who have raised objections to the reappointment of members of the former board as, based on the revelations, they have not given us reason to trust their judgement.

However, we have no doubt that Dr Davis will utilise his experience and wisdom in ensuring that the board makes sound decisions in the future.

In the same way that we welcome Dr Davis’s appointment, we acknowledge the sound thinking behind that of installing Mr Dennis Chung as National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) chairman.

Indeed, outside of two of the new appointees about whom we have reservations, we can’t argue with the individuals named and will give them time to settle in and, hopefully, set the NSWMA on a path to privatisation.

Mr Chung should brace himself for a tough ride, because the NSWMA represents the gravy train for political parties — a place where blinkered supporters of the party in power are let loose to feed from the trough of political pork.

He should not expect those types of individuals to conform to the kinds of procedures that obtain in professionally run businesses. And, with general and parish council elections drawing nearer, Mr Chung and his team will be lucky if they get support from the political directorate for any reform measures they may want to implement.

On that point, though, we hope we are proven wrong. We also hope that the Government will go further by using the current environment to amend the thinking that informs appointments to State agency boards.

Such appointments, we hold, should be dependent on people’s ability to deliver value to the agencies, as well as their willingness to serve, rather than how they vote in parliamentary elections or how highly connected they are.