Gail Alexan­der

Car­ol Bha­gan-Khan, wife of Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan, is mark­ing her sec­ond week on the job as di­rec­tor of health at the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) af­ter even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ing the con­tro­ver­sial job last month."Once I'm qual­i­fied for the post as I am, I see no rea­son why in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try, I should be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against re­gard­ing a job I ap­plied for in the prop­er way–and qual­i­fied for it–sim­ply be­cause of who I'm mar­ried to," Bha­gan-Khan said yes­ter­day.

"I'll be re­port­ing to the NWRHA board and CEO and not the min­is­ter and if there's any in­dis­ci­pline is­sue, there is an in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy to guide any pro­ce­dure. The min­is­ter is not in­volved in that," she added.Since as­sum­ing the post on No­vem­ber 1, Bha­gan-Khan has been tour­ing health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals.

A No­vem­ber 5, 2013, memo on the ex­ec­u­tive ap­point­ment, which went out with­in NWRHA, stat­ed that Bha­gan-Khan was di­rec­tor of health ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 1, 2013. It was signed by the NWRHA's gen­er­al man­ag­er of hu­man re­sources.NWRHA chair­man Dr Ed­di­son Haqq yes­ter­day con­firmed the ap­point­ment.The two-year con­tract car­ries a month­ly salary of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $20,000 and perks.

A spe­cial­ist in oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty as well as an at­tor­ney, Bha­gan-Khan was spot­light­ed in April when she ap­plied for the job, re­port­ed­ly caus­ing "grum­bling in NWRHA" quar­ters when it came to light she was in­ter­viewed and in line for it. She was quot­ed then as say­ing she was ver­bal­ly told she had "prob­a­bly got­ten the job" and a con­tract was in the off­ing.

The is­sue aroused pub­lic crit­i­cism on the ba­sis of per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est, since Bha­gan-Khan's hus­band is the Health Min­is­ter. Un­named sources had ques­tioned how dis­ci­pline is­sues re­gard­ing Bha­gan-Khan might be dealt with, since her hus­band was min­is­ter.At the time, how­ev­er, Min­is­ter Khan said if the pro­ce­dure had been done trans­par­ent­ly he could have no prob­lems with it, but would have if it was not done that way.

Af­ter the furor broke, Bha­gan-Khan said she was un­de­cid­ed about the job and hadn't made a def­i­nite de­ci­sion on it. She was sub­se­quent­ly re­port­ed as say­ing she was nev­er for­mal­ly "of­fered" any top pay­ing job and if she was, she no longer want­ed it.Bha­gan-Khan, at the time, al­so said her hus­band had raised con­cerns about her go­ing for the in­ter­view. But she said she opt­ed to go since she was qual­i­fied for the post and should not have been barred from ap­ply­ing be­cause of her re­la­tion­ship with the min­is­ter.

Con­tact­ed by the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Bha­gan-Khan con­firmed she had changed her mind on the is­sue af­ter be­ing ap­proached by NWRHA a few months ago."I don't see why not, since I have the free­dom to make a choice or to change my mind if I wish in T&T," she added.

Bha­gan-Khan, for­mer chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty, said she had nev­er got a firm of­fer in writ­ing be­fore ac­cep­tance this time. She said she was con­tact­ed by the NWRHA a few months ago with the news that the post had not been filled and if she was still in­ter­est­ed, since she was qual­i­fied for it.She said she de­lib­er­at­ed on the mat­ter and took a while be­fore she changed her mind, around Oc­to­ber.

Ex­plain­ing the gen­e­sis of the sit­u­a­tion, Bha­gan-Khan said she first ap­plied for the po­si­tion last year when the post was ad­ver­tised. At the time, she said even though she came first in the in­ter­view in 2012, she wasn't cho­sen. She said she be­lieved this was due to con­cerns the board had about the favouritism is­sue.

The job, it is un­der­stood, went to an­oth­er NWRHA of­fi­cer who act­ed in the post un­til it came up for re­new­al in 2013 and was ad­ver­tised again. She said she ap­plied when the post was ad­ver­tised again in April 2013 and topped ap­pli­cants again.

Bha­gan-Khan said that in April the is­sue of pub­lic per­cep­tion re­gard­ing favouritism arose again, but it was al­so not­ed by some board mem­bers that she would be re­port­ing to the board and not her hus­band. She said she felt if the is­sue about her hus­band had dis­qual­i­fied her, she would have been dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. She said, how­ev­er, that de­spite the fact she topped the sec­ond in­ter­view, she put the job is­sue be­hind af­ter crit­i­cisms arose in the pub­lic do­main in April.

But Bha­gan-Khan said af­ter be­ing ap­proached a few months ago and told the post was still va­cant, she changed her mind and ac­cept­ed. She said this was par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause af­ter the furor, she re­ceived many calls of sup­port from peo­ple who said she should not have re­fused the job of­fer as she was qual­i­fied for it. She said she felt she would have been de­priv­ing the pub­lic–and T&T–of her wealth of ex­per­tise if she had not ap­plied for the job.

She added: "I have le­gal ex­per­tise in ad­di­tion to oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions in the field, so for in­stance I would be well placed to scru­ti­nise con­tracts and see if they are vi­able or not and de­ter­mine if var­i­ous pro­ce­dures are cost ef­fec­tive; so I have a lot to of­fer."

Asked about con­flict of in­ter­est in the sit­u­a­tion be­cause of her hus­band's po­si­tion, Bha­gan-Khan said she did not see this aris­ing, since she had been giv­en spe­cial as­sign­ments and a spe­cif­ic job de­scrip­tion and an­swers to the NWRHA board and CEO. She said her hus­band didn't in­ter­fere in is­sues."...And I plan to do my best," she added.Dr Suresh Pooran, who act­ed in the post since Jan­u­ary 2010 and was short­list­ed for the post, was said by the NWRHA in April "to be not in­ter­est­ed in the post."

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, health sources in­di­cat­ed "some peo­ple were still sore" at Bha­gan-Khan's tak­ing up the post.

Board chair: Good choice

NWRHA chair­man Dr Ed­di­son Haqq said yes­ter­day that Car­ol Bha­gan-Khan had topped ap­pli­cants both times she went up for the post of di­rec­tor of health.He said all re­quired pro­ce­dures were done–ad­ver­tis­ing, short­list­ing and in­ter­views. He said there was need to fill the po­si­tion for some time and it was ad­ver­tised. He said Bha­gan-Khan ap­plied and she topped it the first time in 2012 and al­so in 2013 when the process was re­peat­ed.

Haqq said Bha­gan-Khan was re­cent­ly con­tact­ed and in­formed, through mu­tu­al agree­ment, of the job.On con­flict of in­ter­est, Haqq said once all pro­ce­dures were ad­hered to, as they were, that would not arise.On her func­tion­ing and her hus­band's po­si­tion, Haqq added: "I don't ex­pect any prob­lems to arise as the min­is­ter has al­ways dealt very ob­jec­tive­ly. Mrs Bha­gan-Khan re­ports to the CEO and the CEO re­ports to the board so that struc­ture and process re­mains in place."

Haqq said the CEO to whom Bha­gan-Khan re­ports is ap­point­ed by the board and not the min­is­ter.He al­so said the board was not ap­point­ed by the cur­rent min­is­ter but had been ap­point­ed in No­vem­ber 2010 when for­mer Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis was in place. She was shift­ed in 2011 and Fuad Khan was ap­point­ed then. The board was reap­point­ed in 2012 with mi­nor changes, Haqq said.

Fuad: She hash­er own mind

No­body hand­picked her for the job!"She re­spond­ed to an ad­ver­tise­ment and was in­ter­viewed and was suc­cess­ful, and she shouldn't be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against–all cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to jobs," Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan said yes­ter­day.Com­ment­ing on his wife's new job as NWRHA health di­rec­tor, Khan added: "She'll do well. She's high­ly qual­i­fied and they're get­ting free le­gal ad­vice on medico-le­gal is­sues."

Af­ter say­ing ear­li­er in the year that if his wife got the job it might have placed him in a "pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion," Khan said he has now re­con­sid­ered and be­lieves: "Every­one de­serves a chance to do what they can do best, whether she's my wife or not. The process was trans­par­ent and I would al­ways stand be­hind the prop­er process."

Pressed on per­cep­tions that could arise from the sit­u­a­tion, Khan said: "Per­son­al­ly, at this time, she has her own brain, her own body and she has her own mind and she's do­ing a job she's trained to do...so be it. But if her do­ing that job puts me in jeop­ardy then we have a very im­ma­ture so­ci­ety."Khan said while the PP had a pol­i­cy that the hus­bands and wives of min­is­ters should not have board po­si­tions, his wife's job was not a po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ment, since she ap­plied for a job, was in­ter­viewed for it and was suc­cess­ful.

"So no­body hand­picked her," he re­it­er­at­ed.

Pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion­for min­is­ter–Browne

The spot­light must now fall on Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of Khan's wife Car­ol Bha­gan-Khan as NWRHA di­rec­tor of health, says Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Dr Amery Browne."Giv­en Min­is­ter Khan's re­port­ed state­ment ear­li­er this year that such an ap­point­ment would put him in a 'pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion,' one would want to know if he re­mains in a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion and if he views this ap­point­ment as a con­flict of in­ter­est," Browne said yes­ter­day.

"Even though Bha­gan-Khan may not be re­port­ing to the min­is­ter di­rect­ly, she would be re­port­ing to a board of di­rec­tors ap­point­ed by the min­is­ter"The NWRHA board would do well to ex­plain how she didn't suc­ceed last year and placed first in 2013."Browne said he un­der­stood Bha­gan-Khan was first in­ter­viewed by the NWRHA for the post in 2012 and "didn't suc­ceed" and was sub­se­quent­ly in­ter­viewed again in April 2013.

"She was in­ter­viewed by a board ap­point­ed by the Min­is­ter of Health and my in­for­ma­tion is that she was be­ing ap­point­ed as of May 1, 2013...the Health Min­is­ter then ad­mit­ted in a me­dia in­ter­view that it put him a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion," he said."But clear­ly all this was aimed at al­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sy to die down be­fore the po­si­tion was qui­et­ly of­fered and ac­cept­ed.

"So the spot­light must once again fall on this Health Min­is­ter who seems to have had nu­mer­ous chal­lenges through­out his tenure, in­clud­ing the cred­it card is­sue, 'moon­light­ing' at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal he was in­volved with –on which the Prime Min­is­ter gave him an ul­ti­ma­tum–and now his wife's ap­point­ment to this health po­si­tion."