KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) is calling on Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who has ministerial responsibility for the Technology Ministry to publicly reveal the process that has led to the selection of Daniel Dawes, a former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentary candidate and a current member of the JLP’s Central Executive, as the new Chief Executive Officer of the Universal Service Fund (USF).

Opposition Spokesman on Science and Technology, Julian Robinson in a statement today highlighted the recent history of the USF Board, which recruited the last CEO, Camille Buchanan, who he said did not meet its own minimum requirements and overlooked many more qualified candidates.

As such, Robinson said in the interest of transparency and good governance, it is incumbent that the public be given details about the profile of the job experiences and qualifications of the persons who applied for the position, the process used to short list candidates and the committee that did the short listing, as well as the disclosure of the scores and ranking of those short listed candidates and the basis for Dawes selection.

The PNP noted that the USF is one of the agencies under the portfolio of the former Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology led by Andrew Wheatley, “where there has been widespread instances of cronyism, nepotism and corruption and the public must be assured that the new CEO was selected in a process that can stand the test of scrutiny.”

The party stressed that theissue is not with Dawes’ political affiliation, “as persons who serve politically should not be barred from holding offices such as these, as long as they meet the requirements of the post and are selected in a process that is fair and just.”

Robinson however said that the number one priority of the current administration should be to restore confidence and trust in the integrity of the operations of agencies under Wheatley’s former portfolio, as the transparent selection of competent and qualified individuals to lead these agencies is a critical first step in restoring that trust.