When Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar laid in Parliament the then eagerly awaited Central Audit Committee report of the Ministry of Finance on the Ministry of Sport's LifeSport programme on July 25, 2014, she made this telling statement:
"Given the fact that the Central Audit Committee has raised the possibility of complicity by ministry officials, the report will be sent to the Integrity Commission and the head of the public service for further investigation, consideration and action."
At the time, the Permanent Secretary and accounting officer for the Ministry of Sport, Ashwin Creed, was on leave and had also indicated his intention not to return to the public service. As indicated by the Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister and head of the Public Service, Reynold Cooper, Mr Creed subsequently changed his mind and there is nothing the government could do about it. Really?
Ministry of International Trade and Communications, Vasant Bharath, who initially claimed that the government and Prime Minister had no power intervene in the matter, has since amended his position after it emerged that the Prime Minister had approved the transfer.
Mr Bharath is now saying that the Prime Minister's approval was really perfunctory and that there was nothing the Prime Minister could do once she received the request. He also added that unlike previous prime ministers, Mrs Persad-Bissessar does not get involved in the running of the public service.
Mr Bharath seems unaware that the Prime Minister has a significant role to play, under the Constitution, in the deployment of the human resources of the public service. And contrary to Mr Bharath's revisionist history, Mrs Persad-Bissessar played precisely such a role when she vetoed the appointment of the Public Service Commission's choice for head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Michelle Austin, in favour of Susan Francois, the administration's preferred choice for the position.
The Prime Minister has tremendous power, including that of moral suasion, under the Constitution to deal with Mr Creed and the accusations against him. The Prime Minister must have been apprised of Mr Creed's decision to renege on his application to seek early retirement and could have put machinery in train to have him retired on the grounds of public interest.
According to former PSC Chairman Ken Lalla in The Public Service and Service Commissions: "In Trinidad and Tobago the Prime Minister may request the head of the Public Service to recommend or make representations to the Public Service Commission for the premature retirement of a Permanent Secretary who has attained the age of 50 years or his retirement on grounds of inefficiency or in the public interest as the case may be."
While there is a presumption of innocence and no charges have been laid against Mr Creed as yet, there are some people who would question why Mr Creed should resume his career in the public service at the Office of the Prime Minister.And questions might also be asked about what has become of the investigations being undertaken by the Integrity Commission and the head of the public service and whether there is a possibility of recommendations from those investigations in the near future.
What is clear is that as the accounting officer at the Ministry of Sport during the LifeSport programme, some of the responsibility for what transpired must rest with Mr Creed.