Prime Minister Andrew Holness is to meet with civil society groups as well as representatives of some churches, the private sector and National Integrity Action (NIA) at Jamaica House today to discuss governance issues, including those which led to yesterday’s resignation of Dr Andrew Wheatley from the Cabinet.

The meeting was scheduled after the groups issued a joint statement to the press calling on Holness and Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips to meet with them to discuss their concerns, as well as several recommendations they had included in a joint letter to the prime minister on July 18.

The groups met with Dr Phillips and his team last week. However, there was no public disclosure of the outcome of those talks, apart from a response by NIA head Professor Trevor Munroe to media queries that the Opposition had agreed to the points and the recommendations made by them.

Holness was unable to meet the team prior to now due to his recent engagements in Namibia.

Munroe said yesterday that the talks would address basically “the long-standing erosion of public trust in the institutions of governance”.

He said that he hoped they would also lead to a better understanding of the situation.

“Hopefully we will begin to understand the seriousness of the erosion, as well as the urgency of the need for corrective measures to deal with the institutional and other reforms,” he added.

The joint letter from the civil society groups pointed out that the respective organisations were of one mind that urgent action is necessary to deal with the situation at the State oil refinery Petrojam and, more generally, “to curb practices of nepotism, cronyism, favouritism, and other evils that have long scarred governance of public bodies and contributed to waste of taxpayers’ money”.

The groups had not recommended the resignation or dismissal of Dr Wheatley, but had suggested that he be excluded, or recuse himself, from all deliberations of the Cabinet (or Cabinet subcommittees) relating to Petrojam, including discussions of reports, investigations, reforms and system reviews.

They had also recommended that the Integrity Commission, the Major Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Agency, as well as the Auditor General, should be provided with the necessary resources to complete their investigations and report on the allegations of corruption, mismanagement, cronyism and victimisation at Petrojam within three months.

“These reports should be laid in Parliament immediately thereafter,” they added.

They also asked that “the main laws, codes, guidelines and regulations relating to good governance should be consolidated into one compendium within three months and form an essential component of governance training for all Cabinet ministers within six months thereafter”.