Renu­ka Singh

Em­bat­tled per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Tourism, Ju­liana Jo­han-Boodram, is de­fend­ing a re­cent four-day trip to Ar­genti­na, say­ing she was not ab­sent with­out leave.Jo­han-Boodram was in Ar­genti­na as part of a lo­cal con­tin­gent in sup­port of the na­tion­al foot­ball team for an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly against the host coun­try.How­ev­er, the is­sue of whether she had fol­lowed pro­to­col in no­ti­fy­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion of her ab­sence from du­ty was raised in a Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive.But speak­ing to the me­dia at yes­ter­day's launch of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed's (TDC) meet­ing plan­ners' guide at Movi­eTowne, Mu­cu­rapo, she said: "I was on of­fi­cial leave."There were ap­provals in place. The nor­mal way we would nor­mal­ly do it is to write to the DPA to get an act­ing PS and write to the comp­trol­ler of ac­counts to get an ac­count­ing of­fi­cer."

Reynold Coop­er, head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice and per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, had ex­pressed sur­prise he had to learn of Jo­han-Boodram's ab­sence in the me­dia. He has since giv­en Jo­han-Boodram sev­en days to ex­plain her ab­sence from the coun­try.In ini­tial­ly com­ment­ing on her ab­sence, 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 added that she left this coun­try un­der the del­e­gat­ed au­thor­i­ty of her line min­is­ter Ger­ald Hadeed and there­fore did not need Cab­i­net ap­proval.Asked yes­ter­day if she had met with Coop­er since her re­turn to the T&T on Mon­day, she replied: Yes, we met."

Of her be­ing re­quired to sub­mit a re­port to Coop­er, Boodram said: "A re­port has gone to Mr Coop­er and head of the pub­lic ser­vice yes­ter­day. I have sub­mit­ted my re­port."I was there on of­fi­cial leave. I was there to pro­mote T&T. Nine­ty-two coun­tries saw the match. Be­sides the coun­tries that saw the match there were 322 mil­lion peo­ple view­ing the match."We were there to pro­mote T&T and I think we did a good job of it. All prop­er pro­to­cols that were sup­posed to be fol­lowed for my ab­sence from this coun­try were fol­lowed."

Creed's no­ti­fi­ca­tion late

An­oth­er PS at­tached to the Min­istry of Sport, Ash­win Creed, al­so was re­port­ed to be ab­sent from the coun­try with­out of­fi­cial leave. But Creed's at­tor­ney, for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment min­is­ter Pe­ter Tay­lor, de­fend­ed his client's ab­sence on Tues­day, say­ing Creed had ap­plied for the ex­tend­ed time away from the job.Coop­er, how­ev­er, on­ly re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion of Creed's ac­tion on Mon­day, one day af­ter the is­sue was high­light­ed in the Sun­day Guardian.

He had been ab­sent from his job since last month and his of­fi­cial leave end­ed on May 23. He has not re­turned to the Min­istry of Sport but ex­tend­ed his time off un­til June 30.Creed is cen­tral to an au­dit be­ing con­duct­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance's Cen­tral Au­dit Unit in­to the Life Sport pro­gramme. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was an­nounced on May 24 by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and be­gan soon af­ter.Creed had al­ready been out of the coun­try be­fore the au­dit be­gan but is a key fig­ure to un­rav­el­ling the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar dis­burse­ments through the now con­tro­ver­sial pro­gramme.