RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee con­ducts care­ful vet­ting of nom­i­nees be­fore rec­om­men­da­tions are made for na­tion­al ho­n­ours, ac­cord­ing to for­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Reynold Coop­er, who said it is al­so cus­tom­ary for the Chief Jus­tice to re­ceive the coun­try’s high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT).

Coop­er, who served on the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee for about five years be­fore re­tir­ing from the Pub­lic Ser­vice 11 years ago, said the com­mit­tee ex­am­ines in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted about nom­i­nees and can re­quest ad­di­tion­al doc­u­men­ta­tion when claims can­not be ver­i­fied.

His com­ments come amid pub­lic crit­i­cism over the 2026 awards, in­clud­ing the de­ci­sion to con­fer the ORTT on Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

Mark re­ceived the award hours he came un­der fire for us­ing his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock in the Sen­ate on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Coop­er said the com­mit­tee does not as­sess a nom­i­nee based on one par­tic­u­lar ac­tion or event, but on the achieve­ments out­lined in the nom­i­na­tion.

“Peo­ple get an award based on their ac­com­plish­ments and what they have ac­com­plished,” he said.

“They may do some­thing which you prob­a­bly dis­agree with, but that is not, they are not judged on that. You may judge the per­son on that, but the com­mit­tee will not judge the per­son on that.”

Coop­er said nom­i­na­tions are sub­mit­ted on forms de­tail­ing a per­son’s ac­com­plish­ments and the com­mit­tee re­views the in­for­ma­tion be­fore de­cid­ing what award, if any, should be rec­om­mend­ed.

He said the com­mit­tee can re­ject nom­i­na­tions if the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed does not sat­is­fy its re­quire­ments and can al­so rec­om­mend a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry from the one re­quest­ed by the nom­i­na­tor.

“When I was on the com­mit­tee, we had to turn down ap­pli­ca­tions that peo­ple sent in,” he said.

He added that the com­mit­tee could de­ter­mine that a nom­i­nee put for­ward for a Cha­co­nia Gold, for ex­am­ple, should in­stead re­ceive a Cha­co­nia Sil­ver or a Hum­ming­bird Medal, de­pend­ing on the per­son’s con­tri­bu­tion to the so­ci­ety.

Coop­er said ver­i­fi­ca­tion was an im­por­tant part of the process.

“If there’s in­for­ma­tion that we can’t ver­i­fy, we’ll call the per­son in some form and say, ‘Send us doc­u­ments or send us some ev­i­dence that what the per­son did, they ac­tu­al­ly did,’” he said.

The com­mit­tee would then ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion be­fore mak­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions. Coop­er said the process al­so in­volves the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net. He ex­plained that af­ter the com­mit­tee makes its rec­om­men­da­tions, they go for­ward for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion, with Cab­i­net hav­ing the fi­nal de­ci­sion.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has said the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice, plays a cen­tral role in vet­ting nom­i­na­tions and rec­om­mend­ing re­cip­i­ents. The Pres­i­dent for­mal­ly con­fers the awards on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Coop­er said the Chief Jus­tice’s re­ceipt of the ORTT was not un­usu­al.

“There are cer­tain po­si­tions that ... the Chief Jus­tice ... will get the ORTT,” he said, ex­plain­ing that the award has tra­di­tion­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied the of­fice.

He said that should be un­der­stood in the con­text of the po­si­tion, rather than viewed as a de­ci­sion based sole­ly on an in­di­vid­ual’s per­son­al ac­com­plish­ments.

Coop­er said the com­mit­tee’s work was in­tend­ed to en­sure that nom­i­nees’ con­tri­bu­tions were prop­er­ly ex­am­ined be­fore an award was rec­om­mend­ed. He said peo­ple may dis­agree with an award, but the com­mit­tee’s role was to con­sid­er the in­for­ma­tion be­fore it and de­ter­mine whether the nom­i­nee met the re­quire­ments.

Coop­er al­so ex­pressed a per­son­al view against posthu­mous na­tion­al awards, say­ing peo­ple should be recog­nised while they are alive and able to re­ceive the ho­n­our them­selves. He said there should in­stead be an­oth­er mech­a­nism to recog­nise sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions af­ter a per­son’s death.

Of­fi­cial process

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, any in­di­vid­ual or or­gan­i­sa­tion may nom­i­nate a cit­i­zen for a Na­tion­al Award.

Nom­i­na­tions are re­viewed by the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, chaired by the Chief Jus­tice, which in­ves­ti­gates nom­i­nees and com­piles rec­om­men­da­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter.

The Prime Min­is­ter then con­sid­ers the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tions and ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent on the re­cip­i­ents. The Pres­i­dent sub­se­quent­ly con­fers the awards, act­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­vice.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al Awards sys­tem com­pris­es five cat­e­gories:

Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT): The na­tion’s high­est award, con­ferred in Gold on­ly for dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go. No more than five may be award­ed in any year.

Cha­co­nia Medal: Award­ed for long and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice that pro­motes na­tion­al wel­fare or strength­ens com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. It is avail­able in Gold, Sil­ver and Bronze.

Hum­ming­bird Medal: Recog­nis­es loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice ben­e­fi­cial to Trinidad and To­ba­go in any field of hu­man en­deav­our, as well as gal­lantry and oth­er hu­mane ac­tions.

Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it: Award­ed for out­stand­ing and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice in the Pub­lic Ser­vice, De­fence and Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, or statu­to­ry bod­ies per­form­ing na­tion­al func­tions.

Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women: Recog­nis­es out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of women.