GML EN­TER­PRISE DESK

Re­tired chair­man of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Nor­bert Mas­son says there is a plan in the mak­ing to im­prove the op­er­a­tions and over­all ef­fi­cien­cy of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

Speak­ing to the GML En­ter­prise Desk days af­ter his re­tire­ment, Mas­son, 82, said: "Many things are hap­pen­ing and I hope they will con­tin­ue."

One project which he was hop­ing to see come to fruition was the In­ter­na­tion­al Stan­dard Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ISO) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the EBC, a project which is be­ing done in con­junc­tion with the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States.He ex­plained that ISO/TS 17582 de­fined spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments for eight process­es that were fun­da­men­tal to any elec­tion.

These in­clude vot­er reg­is­tra­tion; reg­is­tra­tion of po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions and can­di­dates; elec­toral lo­gis­tics; vote cast­ing; vote count­ing and de­c­la­ra­tion of re­sults; elec­toral ed­u­ca­tion; over­sight of cam­paign fi­nanc­ing and res­o­lu­tion of elec­toral dis­putes.

The stan­dard cre­ates the frame­work for an elec­toral qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem that will help or­gan­i­sa­tions like the EBC pro­vide more re­li­able and trans­par­ent elec­toral ser­vices. It al­so cre­ates a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem against which elec­toral bod­ies can be as­sessed.

Mas­son said two ISO ex­perts and a spe­cial­ist in elec­toral man­age­ment vis­it­ed the EBC re­cent­ly.

"They au­dit­ed our sys­tems. They are to sub­mit a re­port show­ing the gaps. Based on those rec­om­men­da­tions we are go­ing to make the nec­es­sary changes to be ac­cred­it­ed un­der the ISO stan­dard. That is go­ing to take some time," he added.

Asked why this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was so im­por­tant to the EBC, Mas­son said: "Be­cause it will make us a world-class or­gan­i­sa­tion. We try­ing to get the com­pe­tent net­work. When Trinidad and To­ba­go is ac­cred­it­ed we will be the first coun­try in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world to have such cer­ti­fi­ca­tion."

Once ac­cred­it­ed, he said, some of the prob­lems which cur­rent­ly ex­ist­ed would be ad­dressed, in­clud­ing the ques­tion of on­line reg­is­tra­tion, re­new­al of cit­i­zens' ID cards who have not changed their ad­dress­es with­in a day.

"A pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy will be put in place and the is­sue of cam­paign fi­nanc­ing will be ad­dressed," he added.

That is­sue of cam­paign fi­nanc­ing, how­ev­er, is tied to the leg­is­la­tors and he ad­mit­ted re­quires leg­is­la­tion, but Mas­son said: "I see the Gov­ern­ment seems to be do­ing some­thing about it. We will wait and see."

Mas­son, who re­tired on De­cem­ber 4, said he was sat­is­fied though that in his two stints as chair­man of the EBC there have been im­prove­ments as the EBC sought to mod­ernise and up­grade its op­er­a­tions.

He said: "All our of­fices are now in­ter-con­nect­ed elec­tron­i­cal­ly, peo­ple get­ting iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards in days, we now have field of­fi­cers, a le­gal de­part­ment and we are work­ing with a strate­gic plan that was ap­proved by Cab­i­net.

" The plan is for the pe­ri­od 2012-2016. Cab­i­net al­so ap­proved the hu­man re­source as­pect which pro­vid­ed for an in­crease in staff."

Mas­son re­flect­ed on the dark shad­ow hang­ing over the EBC as he demits of­fice, the le­gal chal­lenge brought by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress chal­leng­ing the com­mis­sion's de­ci­sion to ex­tend the polls on Sep­tem­ber 7, by one hour, for Trinidad, be­cause of bad weath­er.

The po­lit­i­cal par­ty filed chal­lenges for six of the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies which is yet to be de­ter­mined by the High Court.Mas­son said: "That mat­ter is be­fore the courts and I have been ad­vised that I can­not speak on it but that was not done by one in­di­vid­ual, the com­mis­sion agreed on it."

Un­der his watch, he said, the com­mis­sion over­saw nu­mer­ous elec­tions, in­clud­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, lo­cal gov­ern­ment and gen­er­al elec­tions. Asked whether he was sat­is­fied with the con­duct of all of them, he said: "Ab­solute­ly.

"All the elec­tions un­der my watch were free and fair, all calls for re­counts were dealt with and set­tled, every­thing was above board, ab­solute­ly."

Over the years there have been oth­er con­cerns about the elec­toral process, not least of which was the qual­i­ty of the elec­toral ink, but it was one which he said he act­ed on prompt­ly on as­sum­ing the chair­man­ship ten years ago. He said: "I did what was nec­es­sary so we no longer get crit­i­cisms.

The EBC, he said, pur­chased the in­gre­di­ents for the ink which were sent to the gov­ern­ment chemist for pro­duc­tion. "The gov­ern­ment chemist pro­duces the ink. It is now stan­dard and there are no longer any com­plaints," he added.

On­ly re­cent­ly the UNC held its in­ter­nal elec­tions and there were com­plaints from vot­ers that the ink washed off eas­i­ly. Elec­toral of­fi­cer of the par­ty, Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram, told the me­dia that the ink used was the same brand used by the EBC, but Mas­son said: "I do not know what ink they used."He told us he re­gret­ted not be­ing able to achieve more dur­ing his 30-odd years at the or­gan­i­sa­tion but he said a ma­jor stum­bling block was bu­reau­cra­cy.

He ex­plained: "While the com­mis­sion and its com­mis­sion­ers are in­de­pen­dent the de­part­ment that serves the com­mis­sion is staffed by pub­lic ser­vants sub­ject to all the bu­reau­crat­ic laws that gov­ern the pub­lic ser­vice, to get staff and ac­com­mo­da­tion takes years." Mas­son said the com­mis­sion had been try­ing to move the Diego Mar­tin Reg­is­tra­tion of­fice out of the EBC head­quar­ters, at Scott House, Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain, "but get­ting a sim­ple thing like ac­com­mo­da­tion is a whole rig­ma­role.

"Peo­ple who live in Diego Mar­tin should not have to come to Port-of-Spain but get­ting the ap­proval from the Gov­ern­ment de­part­ment that is re­spon­si­ble is a prob­lem."

Some of the high points of his tenure, he said, were im­prove­ments in the reg­is­tra­tion process, a hand­book was pro­duced with in­put from the com­mis­sion's staff on reg­is­tra­tion pro­ce­dures.

An­oth­er achieve­ment, he said, was the in­ter-con­nec­tion of all of­fices "so if some­one goes to Ari­ma to reg­is­ter, their in­for­ma­tion is sent elec­tron­i­cal­ly to Port-of-Spain to en­sure that the reg­is­tra­tion is ex­pe­dit­ed."

He is con­fi­dent that the EBC is to­day in a bet­ter place than when he as­sumed of­fice. His one re­gret is not be­ing there when the com­mis­sion achieves ISO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, but he said: "Time march­es on, you pass the ba­ton. It is a race that will con­tin­ue from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. "Do as much as you can and pass the ba­ton. Pass it at a time when the or­gan­i­sa­tion is in a bet­ter shape than when you start­ed."

Mas­son has spent close to 51 years serv­ing the coun­try in var­i­ous port­fo­lios. He was prin­ci­pal of the John Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute, di­rec­tor of the Met­ri­ca­tion Board, di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs and served as per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in what was once a mega-min­istry which en­com­passed ed­u­ca­tion, sports, cul­ture, com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and youth af­fairs in the 1970s.

He served as a com­mis­sion­er of the EBC and was sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed chair­man, a post he held un­til his re­tire­ment. His con­tri­bu­tion was recog­nised at the na­tion­al awards in 1984 and 2000, af­ter he was con­ferred with the Medal of Mer­it and Cha­co­nia Gold, in the sphere of pub­lic ser­vice.

The ap­point­ment of a new chair­man now rests with Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona.How­ev­er, the oth­er com­mis­sion­ers Mark Ramk­er­rysingh, Lewis Charles and Dr Noel Kallicha­ran will car­ry out the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the com­mis­sion un­til a new chair­man is ap­point­ed.