Richard Lord

Chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Christo­pher Thomas, says a per­ma­nent ap­point­ment to the post of di­rec­tor of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) will be made with­in six months. "With­in the pe­ri­od of six months the com­mis­sion will be re­view­ing the sta­tus of the di­rec­tor­ship of the FIU in or­der to make a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion on the mat­ter, once it is sat­is­fied that due process has tak­en place," Thomas said. He an­nounced the ap­point­ment of the nom­i­nee for the post of deputy di­rec­tor at the FIU. He said that dur­ing yes­ter­day's news con­fer­ence at Crowne Plaza, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. He said "af­ter much re­flec­tion" the news con­fer­ence was called to "clar­i­fy and cor­rect" state­ments in the me­dia about the staffing of the FIU. He said the nom­i­nee was ac­cept­ed by then act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an on No­vem­ber 3.

Thomas said that was achieved af­ter he "con­tact­ed the act­ing Prime Min­is­ter" on Oc­to­ber 27. Thomas said on No­vem­ber 3 Dook­er­an "con­curred with the rec­om­men­da­tion of the per­son pro­posed for the post of deputy di­rec­tor." It was lat­er an­nounced that the new deputy di­rec­tor of the FIU was Nigel Stod­dard, who was em­ployed with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. No fur­ther de­tails were giv­en. Thomas said the PSC was not to blame for any of the ap­point­ments to the FIU. He said the com­mis­sion, on Ju­ly 11, sub­mit­ted to Per­sad-Bisses­sar the rec­om­mend­ed peo­ple for the posts of di­rec­tor and deputy di­rec­tor at the FIU.

Mean­while, the re­ject­ed nom­i­nee of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) for the post of di­rec­tor of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, Michelle Austin, wrote to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­mand­ing to know:

(1) Was the Prime Min­is­ter's ob­jec­tion ref­er­enced on a tem­po­rary cir­cum­stance? and

(2) Did the com­mis­sion in­tend to sus­pend the ap­point­ment of any post and in that event would her ap­point­ment as the suc­cess­ful can­di­date at a lat­er date be again re­ferred to the Prime Min­is­ter?

Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote to the com­mis­sion last Ju­ly 27, in­di­cat­ing her rea­sons for ve­to­ing Austin's ap­point­ment. Thomas said that was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Austin, who re­spond­ed in a let­ter, dat­ed Au­gust 30. He said that let­ter was sent to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He said the com­mis­sion sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted the PM's re­sponse to Austin. Thomas said the com­mis­sion had done all that was re­quired to fill the post and all oth­er posts in the FIU. He said, how­ev­er, it was on­ly af­ter oth­er bod­ies com­plet­ed oth­er re­quire­ments that the com­mis­sion could make all the nec­es­sary ap­point­ments.