St. George’s, July 10, 2012 – General Secretary of the ruling NDC, Peter David, has revealed that unnamed members of the party made attempts almost a decade ago to remove Tillman Thomas as leader of the National Democratic Congress.

David, who is also MP for the Town of St. George, in one of his most candid interviews broadcast Monday evening on GBN Television, said he successfully opposed and helped stop the attempted removal of the Thomas.

The former Tourism Minister, who has been the target of unrelenting attacks from some party officials and close allies of the government, dismissed the notion that he has personal differences with Thomas or that he wants to replace him as the country’s prime minister.

David said his troubles, and the stacks against him, started after he told Thomas that it was an unwise political decision to seek to appoint his wife, Sandra Thomas, as head of the Public Service Commission. Mrs Thomas is currently permanent secretary in the Ministry of Social Development

According to David, differences within government and the National Democratic Congress primarily are based on policy issues such as job creation and healthcare improvement.

Former senator Arley Gill, who was also a guest on GBN’s “Beyond the Headlines’’, said David had served as the “go-to-guy’’ whenever a challenged confronted the party, and almost sacrifice his own seat while trying to help other candidates – including NDC leader Thomas – win their constituencies in the 2008 general election.

The NDC, which had been in opposition for 13 years, won 11 of 15 seats in 2008 – forming a majority government on its own for the first time since the party was established in 1987.

David and Gill – Public Relations Officer of the NDC – contradicted a recent statement from Finance Minister Burke, who said an investor’s development proposal for the Town of St. George that included a casino, was rejected not because of the prime minister’s opposition to the idea, but because it called for millions of dollars of government expenditure.

In light of the financial challenge, the investor submitted a revised proposal to cabinet in which the project was to be undertaken in phases, but with no financial input from government.

The revised project idea, according to the two former ministers, was then sent to the Ministry of Finance for follow up and a cabinet committee was set up to study the proposal.

The committee reportedly never met, and the proposal is said to be still before the Finance Ministry.