Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Less than one day af­ter this ap­point­ment as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke’s de­ci­sion to stay on as head of the as­so­ci­a­tion is draw­ing some con­cerns.

In a bul­letin is­sued by the PSA, the union’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Su­san Grey said Duke will con­tin­ue as pres­i­dent of the union with­out ben­e­fits and re­mu­ner­a­tion.

This move by the PSA pres­i­dent is not to con­tra­dict his ap­point­ment as Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Act Sec­tion 16 Sub-Sec­tion 8 says: “A sec­re­tary or the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer shall not en­gage in any trade, busi­ness, oc­cu­pa­tion or oth­er un­der­tak­ing for-prof­it and re­mu­ner­a­tion oth­er than that of serv­ing as sec­re­tary or the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.”

For­mer PSA pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said the PSA con­sti­tu­tion does not pro­vide for what Duke is propos­ing.

Bap­tiste-Primus was pres­i­dent of the union up un­til 2009.

She said, “Over the last 12 years or so, I have sought not to com­ment on what is hap­pen­ing at the PSA. Al­so over the years I felt com­pelled to com­ment one or two oc­ca­sions but I wish to point out to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and I wish to speak di­rect­ly to our new Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Far­ley Chavez Au­gus­tine that Wat­son Duke as your deputy can­not hold on to the post of pres­i­dent of PSA.”

Bap­tiste-Primus added: “Wat­son Duke be­ing sworn in as the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, he should have tak­en the de­ci­sion to re­sign from the PSA be­cause you see the po­si­tion of Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary is a full-time po­si­tion with cer­tain terms and con­di­tions and re­mu­ner­a­tions at­tached to that po­si­tion sim­i­lar­ly the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of the PSA is al­so a full-time po­si­tion and there­fore that po­si­tion al­so has a par­tic­u­lar re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age. Now, Wat­son Duke has tak­en the de­ci­sion to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of To­ba­go and I wish him well in that re­gard, as con­se­quence, there­fore, he is no longer el­i­gi­ble to rep­re­sent pub­lic of­fi­cers be­cause rep­re­sent­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers is a full-time job that Mr Duke has used this po­si­tion to pur­chase a Mer­cedes Benz, un­lim­it­ed cell phone us­age and oth­er ben­e­fits that he still en­joys.”

Duke has been serv­ing as PSA pres­i­dent since 2009 and has been won three elec­tions to stay at the helm.

Bap­tiste-Primus was a mem­ber of the union since 1970. She said the framers of the PSA con­sti­tu­tion nev­er pro­vid­ed for such a pres­i­dent.

She al­so said: “It has pained me over the years to watch Wat­son Duke, the framers of the con­sti­tu­tion and the prac­tices and ex­pe­ri­ences in the PSA have nev­er al­lowed for the open dis­play of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion that Wat­son Duke has done. You know why ? be­cause the mem­ber­ship of the PSA be­longs to var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious as­per­sions so, there­fore, the lead­er­ship and par­tic­u­lar­ly the pres­i­dent of the PSA must al­ways act above board and must not be seen lean­ing in any par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tion and I have watched Wat­son Duke bas­tardize the pres­i­den­cy of the PSA and it must stop,” she said.

She said Duke has no le­gal stand­ing to con­tin­ue as the PSA pres­i­dent.

Bap­tiste-Primus added: “Wat­son Duke wants to eat his cake and have it too, it can­not work un­der these cir­cum­stances, Wat­son Duke is now the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the THA, the as­sem­bly is an em­ploy­er of many pub­lic of­fi­cers in To­ba­go and if these work­ers have a griev­ance and they are dis­sat­is­fied is Wat­son Duke is go­ing to Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine on be­half of these work­ers, the shared ab­sur­di­ty of this sit­u­a­tion does not war­rant any more en­er­gy on the top­ic but Wat­son Duke must not be al­lowed and I make a call to all PSA mem­bers your union is at risk they have to come out in de­fence of the union and I call on Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to stop that run­away horse called Wat­son Duke.”

Con­cerns were al­so raised by the for­mer PSA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Oral Saun­ders.

He said: “The PSA con­sti­tu­tion does not give that au­thor­i­ty to the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee to make a de­ci­sion like that be­cause that de­ci­sion con­tra­venes Sec­tions 37 A and B of the PSA con­sti­tu­tion which is spe­cif­ic to na­tion­al of­fi­cers and the con­sti­tu­tion said that there must be nine ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers which in­clude the pres­i­dent so, there­fore, he must al­so be paid and this no­tion that he will not be paid does not arise as it is in­con­sis­tent with the PSA con­sti­tu­tion.”

He added: “We could think that in light of that re­cent au­dit, that au­dit would have un­earthed sev­er­al se­ri­ous dis­crep­an­cies with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the lack of man­age­ment with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and we be­lieve that is why Mr Duke does not want to leave the PSA and it could be that he is fear­ful as to what will be un­earthed in the PSA es­pe­cial­ly af­ter what the au­di­tors re­vealed.”

Ef­forts yes­ter­day to reach Duke proved fu­tile.