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Saturday, July 12, 2025

Morale low in Foreign Affairs as Makeda confirmed

by

2795 days ago
20171116

Dis­grun­tled em­ploy­ees at the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs say they now feel de­mo­ti­vat­ed and dis­re­spect­ed over the ap­point­ment of Make­da An­toine to rep­re­sent this coun­try at the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice in Gene­va (UN­OG). Not­ing it is one of the most se­nior diplo­mat­ic ap­point­ments avail­able, the work­ers said it should nev­er be giv­en to some­one with no diplo­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence.

For­eign Af­fairs work­ers, who spoke with the T&T Guardian on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty yes­ter­day, said there are many of­fi­cers with­in the min­istry “with the req­ui­site qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence” who should have been con­sid­ered for the ap­point­ment. But they lament­ed that they had no re­dress, “be­cause is the politi­cians who de­cide this. It is not the first time po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ments are made, but it is un­fair.”

For­mer diplo­mat Regi­nald Du­mas al­so said he does not be­lieve An­toine, who re­ceived her in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment on Tues­day, has the ex­pe­ri­ence to head such an im­por­tant mis­sion.

Not­ing the po­si­tion re­quires the head to deal with a num­ber of agen­cies, in­clud­ing the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, UN­ESCO, the FAO, UN In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tion and In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion, he said, “Does this per­son have that kind of back­ground? On the face of it no she does not.”

He said he wished An­toine well, “be­cause I wish Trinidad and To­ba­go well, but I am a lit­tle con­cerned.”

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew, Du­mas said it ap­peared that “we now have a re­ver­sion to the 1960s, where every­body ex­cept for one ca­reer of­fi­cer, every­body else ap­pears to be po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees.”

This, he said, sends “an un­for­tu­nate mes­sage to the pro­fes­sion­als in the ser­vice that their ser­vices are ei­ther not re­quired or sim­ply not con­sid­ered suit­able for Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is wrong, es­pe­cial­ly when you’re ask­ing these peo­ple to brief these peo­ple go­ing abroad. The morale in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs must now be quite low.”

Du­mas said while For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses con­firmed ap­point­ment on Tues­day, “the la­dy put some­thing on her Face­book page that she was Am­bas­sador des­ig­nate and put the cat among the pi­geons. That in­di­cates in­ex­pe­ri­ence. That is a mat­ter to be an­nounced by the Gov­ern­ment and not by the per­son con­cerned.”

Du­mas feels there is now need for open­ness on how peo­ple are se­lect­ed for these posts, since it seems “it’s all about po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age.”

If there is a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on For­eign Af­fairs, he said, “I would strong­ly sug­gest and rec­om­mend that they sum­mon peo­ple from the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs be­gin­ning with the Min­is­ter and ask some very per­ti­nent ques­tions about what is our for­eign pol­i­cy, how did we ar­rive at it, how do we ex­e­cute the pol­i­cy, who are the peo­ple we have cho­sen to ex­e­cute, what are their back­grounds?”

In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions con­sul­tant Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att al­so ex­pressed shock at the ap­point­ment of An­toine. She said “she will have to be deal­ing with some very, very del­i­cate mat­ters in­volv­ing the heads of a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion, UN­ESCO and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies we are mem­bers of. How is she go­ing to man­age, I don’t know, be­cause she has no qual­i­fi­ca­tions. She has nev­er been in the diplo­mat­ic ser­vice and has not stud­ied in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.”

It was symp­to­matic, she said, of “peo­ple with no qual­i­fi­ca­tions be­ing ap­point­ed to po­si­tions just on the ba­sis of their po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion or some­body’s friend.”

For­mer UN Am­bas­sador un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, be­lieves the ap­point­ment of the “in­ex­pe­ri­enced new­com­er to the sec­ond most se­nior diplo­mat­ic ap­point­ment for this coun­try” was just one of the rea­sons why Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley should dis­miss Moses. The oth­er rea­sons, he said, re­lat­ed to the fail­ure of this coun­try to at­tend this week’s cli­mate change meet­ing in Bonn.


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