Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

“Wor­ri­some, de­ceit­ful and dis­ap­point­ing!”

That’s how Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has deemed the sit­u­a­tion where To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine made a rec­om­men­da­tion to him “in the most in­no­cent way” on a per­son next in line to be­come THA Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor —but Au­gus­tine with­held that the As­sem­bly in­tend­ed to take ac­tion against the per­son.

And now, To­ba­go has no Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor to en­sure its smooth op­er­a­tion. The sit­u­a­tion is ex­pect­ed to be sort­ed out, hope­ful­ly, in a few days.

Row­ley spoke about the mat­ter dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, where he blamed the THA for ab­sence of a Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor.

He con­firmed that as the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor—To­ba­go’s most se­nior pub­lic ser­vant—has reached re­tire­ment age and no one’s fill­ing the post, se­nior pub­lic ser­vant de­ci­sion-mak­ing and sign­ings can­not be done be­cause the per­son who hold that of­fice is the des­ig­nat­ed of­fi­cer to do so. He said a Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor has to be ob­tained as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to fa­cil­i­tate smooth THA op­er­a­tion.

Row­ley re­spond­ed af­ter deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Faith B Yis­rael’s claims yes­ter­day on the is­sue.

Row­ley said, “The Chief Sec­re­tary has gone AWOL, miss­ing; when I heard the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary in the most haughty of ways, de­scrib­ing this prob­lem as ‘one that has to do with the Prime Min­is­ter’! Be­cause it’s easy in To­ba­go when you get your­self in dif­fi­cul­ty of com­pe­tence or in­com­pe­tence, you just blame Trinidad or the Prime Min­is­ter—I’ll have none of it!”

Row­ley re­count­ed Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to as­sist the THA’s tran­si­tion—in­clud­ing his in­struc­tions that no Min­is­ter was to en­ter any con­fronta­tion—and his meet­ings with Au­gus­tine.

Row­ley said one of the is­sues dis­cussed with Au­gus­tine was to agree on a new Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor. He said at the time he was un­aware of the per­son’s re­tire­ment date but knew it would come to him from the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

The PSC would make the rec­om­men­da­tion to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and the PM has to con­sult with the Chief Sec­re­tary. Af­ter that, a de­ci­sion can be made on who’d be­come the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor. Row­ley said he ex­pect­ed in­for­ma­tion on the next pub­lic ser­vant in line to be sent to him.

Row­ley said the PSC did its job, not­ed who was next in line and rec­om­mend­ed this to the OPM. He said that rec­om­men­da­tion got to the OPM’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary but did not get to him be­cause at the same time on the day it ar­rived, an­oth­er piece of cor­re­spon­dence al­so ar­rived ad­vis­ing the OPM’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary that a new de­vel­op­ment had oc­curred.

He said the PSC’s rec­om­men­da­tion, which would have seen a smooth tran­si­tion, was dis­rupt­ed by the sec­ond cor­re­spon­dence: the per­son who was to have been ap­point­ed by the PSC was sud­den­ly in­ter­dict­ed.

“I’m ad­vised on the last day of the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor go­ing out of of­fice, that of­fice ad­vised the PSC that the per­son in line to re­place the Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor—an­oth­er pub­lic ser­vant who hap­pens to be in the Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices (CAST) in the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice—is now to be the sub­ject of al­le­ga­tions of wrong do­ing and to be sus­pend­ed,” Row­ley said.

He said the PSC had no choice but to with­draw the rec­om­men­da­tion let­ter sent to the OPM and the process now has to restart.

“That’s the rea­son why the THA doesn’t have a Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor,” Row­ley added.

“What I find wor­ri­some and very dis­ap­point­ing is that the Chief Sec­re­tary met me in the ca­pac­i­ty of pub­lic of­fi­cial, made the rec­om­men­da­tion to me in the most in­no­cent way and with­held from me that it was the As­sem­bly’s in­ten­tion to take ac­tion against the per­son who’s been in­ter­dict­ed.

“I’m very dis­ap­point­ed in my To­ba­go col­league and col­leagues, as I’ve gone out of my way to en­sure that no ac­cu­sa­tion can be truth­ful­ly made that the Gov­ern­ment I lead has done any­thing oth­er but to fa­cil­i­tate the As­sem­bly!”

He added, “The rea­son why there’s no Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor is be­cause of the ac­tions of the THA, who claimed to have some au­dit and who claimed to use the au­dit’s re­sults against a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant.

“I refuse to be­lieve when the Chief Sec­re­tary spoke to me that day, that he didn’t know what he was do­ing was in­ter­dict­ing the of­fi­cer who was in line to be next and putting some­body else up to meet my agree­ment. I find that de­ceit­ful and dis­ap­point­ing. I take note of the fact that not every­body who claims to be what they are is what they say they are.”

He said the act of en­sur­ing the of­fi­cer was in­ter­dict­ed ties in with po­lit­i­cal ac­cu­sa­tions made months ago. He said he was nev­er told by any­one in To­ba­go, but dis­cov­ered last week­end that the se­nior of­fi­cer in the PM’s de­part­ment (CAST) in To­ba­go was the sub­ject of meet­ings be­tween the of­fice and the THA un­der cov­er of lawyers. Row­ley said when the of­fi­cer was to be ap­point­ed Chief Ad­min­is­tra­tor, “This trig­ger was pulled.”

Row­ley said a va­can­cy on the PSC al­so has to be filled for it to fill the void cre­at­ed by the in­ter­dic­tion of the per­son who head­ed the PM’s de­part­ment in CAST.

The PSC va­can­cy is now be­ing filled by the Pres­i­dent in con­sul­ta­tion with him and the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“I’m cer­tain as soon it hap­pens, I ex­pect the com­mis­sion will send some­thing to me and I’ll then trig­ger the process of talk­ing to the Chief Sec­re­tary again. When that process oc­curs—hope­ful­ly in a few days—we should get this thing sort­ed out fi­nal­ly,” Row­ley added.