Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed Dr Ster­ling Frost, who re­ceived the na­tion’s high­est award 10 months ago, as the new di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA).

Frost, present­ly the Group Deputy Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of First Cit­i­zens—Op­er­a­tions and Ad­min­is­tra­tion, topped the re­cruit­ment process con­duct­ed by Price­Wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers (PWC).

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands this was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to him in April and at the time, the de­ci­sion had the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.

How­ev­er, when it was con­sid­ered by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, Frost was re­ject­ed for the post.

The TTRA, chaired by ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) Nigel Ed­wards, was, there­fore, di­rect­ed to be­gin the re­cruit­ment process again.

The first re­cruit­ment, which last­ed four months—De­cem­ber 2022 to March 2023—cost the TTRA $119,965.

Ac­cord­ing to the ad­ver­tise­ment placed by PWC for the ex­ec­u­tive re­cruit­ment, at the time, the dead­line for ap­pli­ca­tions was No­vem­ber 30, 2022. An­oth­er ad­ver­tise­ment for the post was is­sued on May 25, 2023.

Ed­wards con­firmed the de­ci­sion and that a sec­ond re­cruit­ment for the post is un­der­way. He told the Sun­day Guardian that the de­lay in ap­point­ing a qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­al for the va­can­cy does not af­fect the work be­ing done to op­er­a­tionalise the TTRA. How­ev­er, it does de­lay the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly col­lect rev­enue owed to it.

Frost, who was ap­point­ed deputy chair of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) in May 2020, was serv­ing in that po­si­tion when he ap­plied for Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day, Frost said, “I par­tic­i­pat­ed in the re­cruit­ment and se­lec­tion process for the di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the TTRA and I was in­formed that I was the se­lect­ed can­di­date. I am aware, through in­for­ma­tion in the me­dia, that the TTRA is fac­ing sev­er­al for­ma­tion and set­up chal­lenges which I be­lieve will be re­solved, in­clud­ing the re­cruit­ment and se­lec­tion of the right in­di­vid­u­als for the right roles. I re­main will­ing to serve our coun­try once called up­on to do so.”

Ac­cord­ing to the PWC ad­ver­tise­ment, the re­quire­ments for the job in­clude a Mas­ter’s de­gree/pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions or equiv­a­lent post-grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions Ac­count­ing/Eco­nom­ics/Law/Busi­ness/Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion or oth­er rel­e­vant fields, a min­i­mum of five years demon­strat­ed ex­pe­ri­ence in tax or cus­toms ad­min­is­tra­tion, cor­po­rate man­age­ment or ac­count­ing/eco­nom­ics/law/busi­ness/pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion or oth­er rel­e­vant fields and re­gion­al or in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure in work­ing in oth­er rev­enue au­thor­i­ties would be an as­set.

When asked whether he felt per­son­al­ly vic­timised by the de­ci­sion, he an­swered, “No, I don’t feel vic­timised or tar­get­ed by any­one. I re­main com­mit­ted to avail­ing our coun­try and its in­sti­tu­tions of the con­sid­er­able skills, knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence which I have gar­nered over my ca­reer.”

Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion

Iron­i­cal­ly, as the present deputy chair of the PSC, Frost will have to over­see the re­cruit­ment of suit­able peo­ple for the posts of the En­force­ment Unit of the TTRA.

There would have been a con­flict if he was ap­point­ed TTRA di­rec­tor gen­er­al.

Im­bert had iden­ti­fied “de­fi­cien­cies in the cur­rent sys­tem, stem­ming from lim­i­ta­tions with­in the Pub­lic Ser­vice” as a rea­son for the TTRA’s es­tab­lish­ment.

“The Act en­ables the TTRA to func­tion ac­cord­ing to its man­date, but through a hy­brid sys­tem, where­by the En­force­ment Di­vi­sion will still be guid­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. Through bench­mark­ing against sev­er­al mod­els, the struc­ture cho­sen for the TTRA com­bines the func­tions of two di­vi­sions of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, name­ly the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) and the Cus­toms & Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED). As one rev­enue col­lect­ing agency, there will be sev­er­al ben­e­fits and syn­er­gies, in­clud­ing cost ef­fi­cien­cies, da­ta shar­ing and im­proved risk mit­i­ga­tion frame­works,” Im­bert had said in a state­ment to Par­lia­ment on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2023.

Frost was ap­point­ed to the PSC in May 2020. The mem­bers of the PSC are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader.

In his con­tri­bu­tion on the TTRA Bill on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2021, Im­bert had ex­plained that the pur­pose of the En­force­ment Di­vi­sion of the TTRA “is to ex­er­cise those en­force­ment pow­ers, ex­cept­ing the en­force­ment of rev­enue laws by way of civ­il pro­ceed­ings, found un­der the rev­enue laws by a cadre of pub­lic of­fi­cers ap­point­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.”

He had said that “the idea of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion ap­point­ing of­fi­cers to a body cor­po­rate is not a new con­cept in this coun­try” re­fer­ring to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions.

The Sun­day Guardian was un­able to reach Im­bert for com­ment.

First Cit­i­zens Ex­it

The Sun­day Guardian learnt that Frost will ex­it First Cit­i­zens when he turns 60 in De­cem­ber.

He be­gan his tenure at the bank in 2016 and shares deputy chief ex­ec­u­tive du­ties with Ja­son Julien.

Pri­or to this, he worked in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties at Citibank North Amer­i­ca for the Latin Amer­i­ca Re­gion, based in Mi­a­mi, from 2007 to 2016. He left Citibank as di­rec­tor/ head hu­man re­sources.

The de­ci­sion for Frost to con­tin­ue his em­ploy at First Cit­i­zens un­til he is 65 lay was al­so be­fore the bank’s board. The Sun­day Guardian was told the board, chaired by An­tho­ny Smart, de­cid­ed against keep­ing him on.

When asked about the de­ci­sion, the bank’s chief ex­ec­u­tive Karen Dar­basie said she was un­able to com­ment on con­fi­den­tial/per­son­al in­for­ma­tion on any em­ploy­ee. But Frost con­firmed his ex­it in De­cem­ber.

“The Nor­mal Re­tire­ment Date (NRD) at First Cit­i­zens is age 60. I will at­tain that age in De­cem­ber 2023. Af­ter 41 years of bank­ing in North Amer­i­ca, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, along­side 23 years of lec­tur­ing at the UWI; I am at a stage in my dual ca­reer where I would like to place greater em­pha­sis on the trans­for­ma­tive work re­quired to sup­port stu­dents to reach their full po­ten­tial. To achieve this, while I con­tin­ue to share my knowl­edge through my writ­ing and pub­li­ca­tions, I will place fo­cus on the cre­ation of new knowl­edge through more ex­ten­sive re­search and con­tin­ued teach­ing,” he said.

Frost re­ceived the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T for his con­tri­bu­tion in the spheres of Bank­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice.

He has a Mas­ter’s de­gree and a Doc­tor­ate in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI ) and in Feb­ru­ary 2019, he was the first per­son at UWI to be ap­point­ed Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice: Man­age­ment Stud­ies.

The TTRA was es­tab­lished in 2021. It took over 10 years to come to fruition. For fis­cal 2023, the TTRA was al­lo­cat­ed the sum of $10 mil­lion.

Posts Held by Dr Ster­ling Frost

Deputy Chair:

1. Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion - ap­point­ed in May 2020 to present

2. Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion - Oct 2022 to present

Chair­per­son:

1. Ly­di­an Singers (NPO)

2. UWI Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences Ad­vi­so­ry Board

3. UWI In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies Ex­ter­nal Ad­vi­so­ry Board

4. UWI De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund

5. Foun­da­tion for the En­hance­ment and En­rich­ment of Life (NPO)

6. First Cit­i­zens Foun­da­tion (NPO)

7. An­gos­tu­ra Foun­da­tion (NPO)

As­ses­sor/Ad­vi­sor:

1. In­dus­tri­al Court of T&T

Di­rec­tor:

1. St Lu­cia Elec­tric­i­ty Ser­vices Lim­it­ed

a. Chair of HR com­mit­tee

b. Mem­ber of Strat­e­gy com­mit­tee

2. An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed

a. Mem­ber of HR com­mit­tee

b. Mem­ber of Au­dit com­mit­tee

3. An­gos­tu­ra Lim­it­ed

a. Mem­ber of HR com­mit­tee

b. Mem­ber of Au­dit com­mit­tee

4. Trinidad Dis­tillers

a. Mem­ber of HR com­mit­tee

b. Mem­ber of Au­dit com­mit­tee

5. First Cit­i­zens In­vest­ment Ser­vices Lim­it­ed

6. First Cit­i­zens Trustee Ser­vices Lim­it­ed