Lead Stories

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Local attorney Harold Brady, who featured prominently in the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips muddle, has resurfaced in Contractor General Greg Christie's probe into the Trafigura affair.

Brady's roles in the two controversies appear at first blush to have a touch of similarity.

Trafigura was the last scandal to rock the 18-year-old People's National Party administration in 2006 before it was removed from office and the Manatt controversy, the first to rattle the new Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party government.

The lawyer, known for his long-standing connection with the JLP, emerged as the liaison among United States law firm, Manatt, and Government and party figures in Jamaica.

He facilitated last year's deliberations involving Manatt representatives and Jamaica as the island sought to extricate itself from the extradition impasse it had found itself in with the United States over former Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher Dudus Coke.

Worth mentioning

In his report on the special investigation into oil-lifting contracts between the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) and the Dutch firm, Trafigura Beheer, which The Gleaner has obtained, the OCG fingered Brady as a figure worth mentioning.

Christie revealed that during its probe, his office had three distinct classifications of encounters with the Dutch authorities between October 2006 and January 2008.

The contractor general cited written correspondence between his office and the Dutch authorities and contact made with the Jamaica Constabulary Force on January 9, 2008 pertaining to investigations being executed by the Dutch authorities.

But it was Christie's mention of Brady as the other classification of encounter that could cause eyebrows to twitch.

"Representations, which were made to the OCG by a Mr Harold Brady, a private attorney-at-law on November 16, 2007 regarding proposed meeting between himself, the OCG and the Dutch authorities," Christie wrote.

The nature of "Brady's represen-tation" was not highlighted in Christie's voluminous report.

Christie's decision to initiate a probe in October 2006 was prompted by an announcement on October 3, 2006, by the then leader of the opposition and current Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, in which he reportedly accused the then ruling People's National Party (PNP) of financing its annual conference with a J$31-million largesse provided by the Dutch oil-trader, Trafigura.

Resignation of the entire government

The then Opposition, led by Golding, seemed as excited at the prospects of capitalising on the Trafigura mess as Portia Simpson Miller's PNP is on the Manatt muddle.

In the heat of the Trafigura scandal in 2006, Golding called for the "resignation of the entire government" and asserted that the matter, in his view, was one which needed no independent investigation or "com-mission of inquiry".

On Sunday, when The Gleaner broke the news that there was more to the Manatt mystery, Simpson made an impassioned call for Golding to vacate the post she lost to him three years ago.

Simpson Miller told supporters at the constituency conference in South West Clarendon that Golding was too compromised to stay in office.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com