President Anthony Carmona yesterday named three new members to the Integrity Commission and re-appointed one from the former commission.The new appointees are retired Justice Sebastian Ventour, Deonarine Jaggernauth, a petroleum and environmental engineer, and Dr Shelly-Anne Lalchan, an ophthalmologist and surgeon.
He re-appointed Seunarine Jokhoo, a chartered accountant, for a second three-year term. Ken Gordon remains chairman, having been appointed for a three-year term on October 28, 2011.The term of four former commissioners expired in March and the new members were confirmed yesterday.Carmona said the oath of office would be administered soon. Former head of the public service Reginald Dumas yesterday said the President's decision to retain Gordon as chairman for now was effectively "a vote of confidence in Gordon.""It is clear that the President has concluded that there was no need for Gordon to resign or be removed," Dumas told the T&T Guardian in a telephone interview.
He noted that the President would have used his experience as a judge to come to his conclusion.He added, however, that it did not mean that Gordon's status might not be reviewed in the future.Dumas said he did not know many of the new members personally but hoped they would be prepared to face the challenges that confronted the commission.He also hoped the new commissioners would "operate in a calm and smooth path with strength and character" and conduct themselves with dedication because the commission had been battered quite a bit in the recent years. He also hoped the new commission would do all it could to restore its reputation.New commission member Deonarine Jaggernauth, in a brief interview with CNC3 yesterday, said he was "not worried at all" and was "prepared to face the challenges ahead."
New Integrity Commission
�2 Justice Sebastian Ventour (retired) had a distinguished 34-year legal career. He was senior partner at the law firm of Fitzwilliam, Stone, Furness-Smith and Morgan and a judge in the Supreme Court for 14 years.He has also served at the Law Association, both as secretary and as a member of the disciplinary committee. Justice Ventour lectures at the Hugh Wooding Law School, where he has taught for 22 years. He is married, with three children.
�2 Seunarine Jokhoo is a returning member of the Integrity Commission, having previously been appointed to serve a three-year term on March 15, 2010. A chartered accountant, he has a 35-year history in the public service from which he retired as director of State Enterprises and acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry.He also worked in the private sector as financial controller of Amar Holdings Ltd, general manager and director of the Citrus Growers Association and executive chairman of National Fisheries Co Ltd. Jokhoo has chaired and served on numerous boards. An avid farmer, he is married with four children.
�2 Deonarine Jaggernauth has given 33 years of service to Petrotrin and will be retiring in a few weeks. A petroleum and environmental engineer by profession, he is a researcher who has published many papers and received several awards, including the Society of Petroleum Engineers' Distinguished Member Award in 2005.A part-time lecturer at the University of T&T (UTT), he is also vice president of the Trintoc Penal Credit Union. He is a lay minister at the St Benedict's RC Church.
�2 Dr Shelly-Anne Lalchan, ophthalmologist and surgeon, is a fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, member of the American Academy of Ophthalmologists, member of the International Society of Glaucoma Surgery and founder of the West Indian Society of Glaucoma Surgeons (WINGS).Having spent the majority of her medical career practising in the United Kingdom, she has returned home where she is in private practice. She is also an associate lecturer in post-graduate ophthalmology with the University of the West Indies at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex.Lalchan is engaged in social work in her professional area of expertise. She is married to a doctor and is the mother of one.