THE Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has recalled former Senator Don Wehby to join its team of 13 to be sworn in as senators when Parliament resumes today.

In September 2007, following the emergence of the Bruce Golding JLP Administration, Wehby resigned from his positions at GraceKennedy Limited, including from its board of directors, to serve for two years as a Government senator and minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.

Following that two-year stint in public service, he was reappointed to GraceKennedy’s board in October 2009 and is currently group chief executive officer. However, there is no need for his resignation this time, as he is not a member of the Cabinet.

Wehby will team with banker Aubyn Hill, who heads the party’s Economic Council, as the Government’s team on business, the economy and fiscal policy in the upper chamber. Hill will also be the deputy president of the Senate.

Also joining the Government’s team in the Senate will be former beauty queen and now consultant psychiatrist Dr Saphire Longmore; former attorney general during the last JLP Administration (2007-2012), Ransford Braham; head of Generation 2000 (G2K), Matthew Samuda; Councillor Delroy Williams from the Seivwright Gardens Division of the KSAC, which forms part of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ St Andrew West Central constituency; Kerensia Morrison, a teacher who was the losing JLP candidate in St Catherine North Central in the February 25 general election; former mayor of Montego Bay, Charles Sinclair; and Pearnel Charles Jnr, who has been appointed minister of state in the Ministry of National Security.

Tom Tavares-Finson, who was the leader of Opposition Business in the last Senate, will return as president of the Senate, and attorney Kamina Johnson Smith will become leader of Government Business, in addition to being minister of foreign affairs.

Other former senators returning are high school principal, Ruel Reid, who is also minister of information, youth and education, and Kavan Gayle, president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union.

The Opposition team were are all members of the previous Senate. They are: Mark Golding, the former minister of justice, who will be the leader of Opposition Business; attorney KD Knight; Mayor of Kingston Angela Brown Burke; former president of the Senate Floyd Morris; educator Wensworth Skeffery; trade union leader Lambert Brown; attorney Sophia Frazer-Binns; and businessman Noel Sloley.

— Balford Henry