Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

ANI­KA GUMBS-SAN­DI­FORD

ani­ka.gumbs@guardian.co.tt

New­ly pro­mot­ed telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) Si­mon Ba­haw may have some ex­plain­ing to do af­ter ad­mit­ting to ob­tain­ing his Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree in In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy from an un­ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty.

Ba­haw is among sev­er­al em­ploy­ees at the au­thor­i­ty who were re­cent­ly rec­om­mend­ed for pro­mo­tion.

The pro­mo­tion, T&T Guardian was told, has sent shock waves through­out WASA, with sev­er­al work­ers threat­en­ing to with­hold their ser­vices un­til the pro­mo­tion is re­voked.

A copy of the list­ing, dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 3, ob­tained by T&T Guardian, lists Ba­haw's sub­stan­tial post in Range 28 as a Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

As a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ba­haw re­ceived a ba­sic month­ly salary of $7,500. How­ev­er, on the ba­sis of the rec­om­men­da­tion for pro­mo­tion, Ba­haw has now moved to Range 68, push­ing his salary to $25,000 with perks in­clu­sive of ve­hi­cle, trav­el­ling, tele­phone al­lowances and com­mut­ed over­time.

In­for­ma­tion ob­tained by T&T Guardian re­vealed Ba­haw ob­tained his de­gree from Can­ter­bury Uni­ver­si­ty in the UK. On­line checks re­vealed the uni­ver­si­ty is de­scribed as a "diplo­ma mill," as­so­ci­at­ed with the Web site in­stant­de­grees.com

It was es­tab­lished in 1974 and is based in the Sey­chelles. Ac­cord­ing to the British De­part­ment for In­no­va­tion, Uni­ver­si­ties and Skills, the uni­ver­si­ty is not a recog­nised body for Unit­ed King­dom de­gree awards.

T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed it was hu­man re­source di­rec­tor Ken Ma­habir who rec­om­mend­ed Ba­haw for the pro­mo­tion.

When con­tact­ed, Ma­habir de­clined to com­ment on the role he played in pro­mot­ing Ba­haw, say­ing he was out of the coun­try.

Even Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive Leroy Bap­tiste, who would have agreed to Ba­haw's pro­mo­tion, took a hands-off ap­proach when asked to shed some light on the con­tro­ver­sial ap­point­ment. Told that the de­gree Ba­haw had read for is un­ac­cred­it­ed, Bap­tiste replied:" I have ab­solute­ly no com­ment to make," be­fore abrupt­ly hang­ing up the phone.

But Ba­haw de­fend­ed the pro­mo­tion when in­ter­viewed by T&T Guardian, in­sist­ing that he has worked his way up the lad­der, even though his de­gree is not ac­cred­it­ed-and the list from last month which in­di­cat­ed he was a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive up till then.

Ba­haw said: "There is some jeal­ousy in­volved, but I have noth­ing to hide...The de­gree I would have got is not ac­cred­it­ed be­cause the school is no longer in ex­is­tence. I am com­plet­ing my Mas­ter of Sci­ence in De­cem­ber. I went in­to WASA at Range 28, which was as a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive. I moved up to Range 35 as a se­nior cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive, then to a tech­ni­cian at Range 42. I was then pro­mot­ed to Range 60 as an ad­min­is­tra­tor, af­ter which I moved to Range 64 and then Range 68."

Asked what po­si­tion he held at Range 64, Ba­haw did not say, on­ly adding: "It is 23 years of ser­vice I have."

He asked the T&T Guardian to call back at 2 pm for him to clar­i­fy all ques­tions, as he was board­ing a flight. When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Ba­haw as re­quest­ed on the sec­ond oc­ca­sion, he said, "Ask any­body about me. They will say I am one of the nicest per­sons. Self-praise is no praise. I know you have a job to do and I do not want to ham­per what you are do­ing. I have been ad­vised by the hu­man re­source de­part­ment that I am not al­lowed to speak to the me­dia on any mat­ter."

But sources said it is not on­ly Ba­haw's ap­point­ment that caused a stir among em­ploy­ees af­ter the list­ing was leaked.

Sources re­vealed the mat­ter is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the hu­man re­sources de­part­ment and was re­port­ed to the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Com­mis­sion.

Wasa's com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Ellen Lewis and line min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh could not be reached for com­ment.