An authoritative voice on matters of integrity, honesty and good governance has been silenced with the passing of Reginald Dumas.
He was a commentator on national, regional and international affairs who regularly spoke out in newspaper columns and interviews about improving the quality of governance and institutions in T&T and the Caribbean.
Dumas was an intellectual, diplomat and insightful political analyst who seldom hesitated to share his views on major issues. His objectivity on a wide range of topics was never questioned because throughout his public life, Dumas remained unwaveringly apolitical, steering well clear of party politics.
Nearly all of his professional career was spent in the public service, first as a career diplomat who rose to the rank of ambassador and subsequently as head of the Public Service, a position he held for just a few years but the one for which he became best known.
But long before his long and distinguished service to the country, Dumas, who was of Tobagonian parentage, was making his mark academically as a student at Queen’s Royal College, then later at the prestigious Cambridge University and the Institut Universaire de Haute Etudes Internationales, Geneva.
His entry into the foreign service came after the collapse of the West Indian Federation in 1962, when he served as a junior diplomat in newly independent T&T.
From that vantage point, serving at T&T’s United States Embassy in Washington, DC, under a future president, Ellis Clarke, Dumas began to develop the insight into the social and political history of this country and the Caribbean that served him well in later years.
It was the start of a distinguished diplomatic career that lasted until 1988, with assignments to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean, India, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, among other locations.
Later on, during his tenure as head of the Public Service, Dumas was appointed by the late prime minister George Chambers to head a Cabinet-appointed task force to review the public service.
However, that task force was asked to cease operations when the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), led by the late ANR Robinson, won the general election in 1986.
In hindsight, it was a lost opportunity to bring about the reforms that are still desperately needed in the public service all these decades later.
Dumas, a true patriot and nation-builder, never relented in his dedication to the development of the country and went on to serve on various task forces, commissions of inquiry and other public and private initiatives in and outside of T&T long after his retirement in 1991.
In 1998, he co-founded T&T Transparency Institute, the local chapter of Transparency International, then in 2004, was selected by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as a special adviser on affairs related to Haiti.
It was a mission to which Dumas was well suited with his fluency in the French language and extensive knowledge of diplomacy and civil responsibility.
As a prominent member of Tobago’s Council of Elders, he was regularly heard on the issue of internal self-government and in recent weeks, also shared his views on the constitutional reform exercise recently set in motion by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
A respected voice that challenged the country’s leaders on transparency, accountability and truth will no longer be heard.
This is a great loss to T&T.