Heat on Holness

THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has turned up the pressure on Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness to sack Dr Andrew Wheatley from his Cabinet.

Wheatley, minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for science, technology and special projects, has come under pressure from the Opposition since Wednesday when a report from the Integrity Commission (IC), which was tabled in Parliament, recommended that he face criminal charges for illicit enrichment as a public official.

On Thursday the Opposition used a media conference to question the thought process behind the prime minister’s decision to return Wheatley to the Cabinet after what it described as his somewhat murky past.

Wheatley, the Member of Parliament for St Catherine South Central, previously served as minister of energy in a Holness Cabinet but resigned in July 2018 as scandals engulfed a number of entities under his portfolio.

Three years later, Wheatley, in an exclusive interview with the Jamaica Observer, said he had learnt from that experience and was wiser and more mature.

“To be quite honest, I am just going with the flow. I am always willing to serve, and I have been serving while outside the Cabinet. People who know me will realise that the Cabinet is not the ultimate goal. I mean, it would be good to serve at that level, but it is not my ultimate aim,” Wheatley told the Observer.

“There are definitely things that I could have done differently and, as a student of life, I believe that every experience is a learning process, and I believe that God afforded me the opportunity to experience these challenges to learn to be a better person,” added Wheatley then.

He was returned to the Cabinet after the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) victory in the 2025 General Election after some seven years on the sidelines.

On Thursday, Opposition Leader Mark Golding argued that there were some instances in which a Government minister may make a genuinely bad move and, after being punished for the offence, they returned to serve the people well.

According to Golding, while he was fine with that idea, he is nevertheless against people returning to the Government who had serious allegations of corruption levelled at them without the accusations being cleared.

“I think each case has to be assessed on its own merit. There are situations where somebody who holds a ministerial position may do something that is not quite right and, because we are trying to set a standard of good behaviour and proper governance, that cannot be ignored, but it may not be so egregious as to warrant permanent exclusion of that person from their career.

“On the other hand, there are some things that are sufficiently serious and that person really should not be a public figure any longer. They should not be responsible for any aspect of the affairs of the nation. They should not be privy to State secrets and exercising executive authority in a portfolio affecting the lives and interests of the Jamaican people,” Golding said.

The Opposition has underscored that the issues cited in the latest IC report on Wheatley include information that he sold his medical practice, Western Medical Centre, for $13 million in 2013 and was paid through intermittent cash payments.

The PNP highlighted, from the report, that Wheatley named a buyer of the business but produced no receipt and after an independent investigation, it was revealed that the alleged buyer was not in Jamaica, but had either been deported or extradited to another country three years before the transaction allegedly took place.

WHEATLEY… three years ago said he had learned from previous Cabinet ouster.

The PNP stressed that not only was the explanation unsubstantiated, but it was also impossible.

Opposition spokesperson on finance Julian Robinson told the media briefing he found Wheatley’s return to the Cabinet ironic.

“I find it ironic that he was removed in 2018 after allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism related to him as minister of energy. For some time he remained out of the Cabinet — for seven years. I don’t know whether he had told the prime minister when he was being reappointed that he was the subject of an Integrity Commission investigation into illicit enrichment.

“One wonders why would he be reappointed had he known that he was the subject of an investigation. We know that he is not alone. We know there are eight or nine Members of Parliament who are also the subject of investigations by the Integrity Commission for illicit enrichment. We call for those persons to declare themselves and hold up their hands,” said Robinson.

He charged that the report indicated that Wheatley told the IC that he earned returns on a high-yield investment scheme but there was no evidence the scheme existed.

“There were no records. More importantly, the explanation was not in Dr Wheatley’s statutory declarations for the entire period. He only raised it in 2024 as part of the investigation into illicit enrichment. Dr Wheatley would present one thing to the commission and then after an investigation it is found that it is totally opposite,” Robinson said.

He highlighted that the report showed where Wheatley said he received rental income of approximately $143 million.

“The Integrity Commission asked for the names of those tenants, receipts, et cetera. Dr Wheatley indicated that these persons were protected under the Data Protection Act and as such he could not provide that information. When he was pressed further, while he was able to provide some names and some substantiation, he could not substantiate $143 million which he claimed came from rental income,” said Robinson.

Robinson said Wheatley took five loans in his name from the Bank of Nova Scotia spanning the years 2013 to 2021, but they were never declared in his statutory declarations.

He said, also, that Wheatley was the owner of lands in East Kirkland Heights in St Andrew which were subdivided into 20 strata lots. He said that 14 of the lots were sold over a four-year period. None of this information, according to Robinson, had been declared by Wheatley.

“It wasn’t until 2017 that any reference to a subdivision appeared at all. The commission obtained a full picture through information from the National Land Agency, independent of the information provided by Dr Wheatley,” Robinson said, as he accused Wheatley of a pattern of evasion.

“Anyone who operates like this, whose credibility cannot stand the test of scrutiny, should not be a member of Cabinet. We are reiterating our call for Dr Wheatley to be removed immediately from the Cabinet,” Robinson insisted

Wheatley has rejected the IC’s conclusions and has accused its investigators of ignoring evidence that he said would have significantly changed the outcome of the probe.

Lawyers representing Wheatley have also reportedly written to the IC pointing to what they describe as inconsistencies in its report and conclusion.