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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Dumas calls for disciplinary action

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20140608

Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Reynold Coop­er is ex­pect­ed to take ac­tion to­day in the mat­ter against Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Tourism Min­istry Ju­liana Jo­han-Boodram, who left for a four-day trip to Ar­genti­na with­out ap­proval. As re­port­ed in the Sun­day Guardian, Jo­han-Boodram went to Ar­genti­na last week Sun­day to see a friend­ly foot­ball match be­tween the host na­tion and T&T with­out the knowl­edge and ap­proval of Coop­er.

Re­li­able sources yes­ter­day dis­closed that mat­ter is ex­pect­ed to be ad­dressed to­day and Jo­han-Boodram will be called to ac­count for her ac­tion.Coop­er said on Fri­day he was stunned to learn of her ab­sence in the me­dia.For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas said yes­ter­day Coop­er must de­mand an­swers from Jo­han-Boodram."This is a se­ri­ous mat­ter which re­quires ur­gent at­ten­tion," he added.

"He must ask for an ex­pla­na­tion from the PS and if he was not sat­is­fied with it (her ex­pla­na­tion) he must pro­ceed to seek dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against her."On Fri­day, Jo­han-Boodram said she "for­got" to in­form Coop­er about her de­par­ture and that the trip was "not a big deal" as it had not been paid for with state funds. She said that she left un­der the del­e­gat­ed au­thor­i­ty of her line Min­is­ter Ger­ald Hadeed and there­fore she did not need Cab­i­net ap­proval.

An­oth­er PS Ash­win Creed has al­so been ab­sent from his min­istry with­out ap­proval. Creed, who sought emer­gency leave from April 14 to 22, has been away from the Min­istry of Sports for a fur­ther 16 days, with­out get­ting an ex­ten­sion.

In re­sponse, Du­mas said: "If you are a se­ri­ous PS, you don't for­get things like that. You are the civ­il ser­vice head of the min­istry, you are the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer. A PS can­not leave the coun­try with­out in­form­ing the Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion be­cause arrange­ments have to made for some­one to act dur­ing her ab­sence, even if it is two days."

Du­mas said while he was not sure she re­ceived Cab­i­net's per­mis­sion to leave the coun­try "she was at fault for not get­ting in touch with the Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice for an act­ing ap­point­ment to be made. She is cer­tain­ly at fault and it was for the head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice to take ac­tion."

On her claim that she left on the "del­e­gat­ed au­thor­i­ty" of Tourism Min­is­ter Ger­ald Hadeed, Du­mas said he want­ed to know since when that new mea­sure was in­tro­duced. He said min­is­ters had to get the ap­proval of Cab­i­net to trav­el abroad but Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries did not. "Since when," he asked.And Du­mas said the PS may in breach of the law by ac­cept­ing a tick­et that was not paid for by the gov­ern­ment or the min­istry.

Du­mas said Sec­tion 25 of the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits a PS from ac­cept­ing gifts over a cer­tain val­ue. He said the tick­et could be seen a gift and con­se­quent­ly she "must say what was the cost of the tick­et and who paid for it."With­out giv­ing de­tails, Du­mas said he re­mem­bered a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent hap­pen­ing when he was head of the pub­lic ser­vice and PS to the Prime Min­is­ter. In that in­ci­dent, Du­mas said the PS had tak­en "gov­ern­ment funds" and went to a meet­ing in New York, USA with­out his knowl­edge and per­mis­sion.

Du­mas said when he was made aware of the unau­tho­rised trip, he "got in touch with the PS and asked 'if it was true' and he said 'yes it was true' and I said well in that case I am go­ing to re­quest the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to take ac­tion."He said the PSC took dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against the of­fi­cial, sus­pend­ing him. to take dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against you."Du­mas said the PS was asked to re­pay the funds but could not say if it was done be­cause he re­tired short­ly af­ter as Head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

Chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Dr Mar­jorie Thor­pe on Fri­day said she was al­so un­aware of the for­eign trip by PS Jo­han-Boodram.


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