KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) con­tin­ues to in­crease its ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber­ship, with the ad­di­tion of three new of­fi­cials yes­ter­day.

Come Ju­ly, Pat­sy Latch­man-At­ter­bury will be sworn in as the new di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the TTRA af­ter be­ing ap­proved by the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

A to­tal of 23 sen­a­tors, in­clud­ing eight of the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, vot­ed for, six vot­ed against, and one in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor ab­stained from vot­ing.

The sen­ate al­so ap­proved the ap­point­ments of He­len Thomas-Brown and Ri­ad Ju­man as deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­als for do­mes­tic tax as well as cus­toms and ex­cise, re­spec­tive­ly.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives al­so ap­proved the three ap­point­ments on April 12.

Latch­man-At­ter­bury, a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al, is cur­rent­ly the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Grace Kennedy Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment in Ja­maica.

How­ev­er, de­spite hav­ing an im­pres­sive re­sume, ac­cord­ing to some sen­a­tors, the Op­po­si­tion was of the firm opin­ion that Latch­man-At­ter­bury was not fit for pur­pose.

De­bat­ing the mo­tion in the Up­per House yes­ter­day, op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Wade Mark ac­cused the in­com­ing di­rec­tor gen­er­al of hav­ing a con­flict of in­ter­est with TTRA’s present chair­man, Nigel Ed­wards.

Mark said, “Our po­si­tion is very clear; we are not in sup­port of this arrange­ment called the TTRA. We are not in sup­port of what the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to im­pose on the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The in­di­vid­ual that is be­fore us, called Pat­sy Latch­man-At­ter­bury, is un­suit­able for this par­tic­u­lar post. The per­son is un­fit for pur­pose, and as such, we are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw this par­tic­u­lar nom­i­nee. This nom­i­nee is con­flict­ed and there­fore un­suit­able for the job.

“This la­dy, on May 20, 2022, in Kingston, Ja­maica, on be­half of Grace Kennedy Cap­i­tal, signed, sealed, and de­liv­ered a mu­tu­al funds con­tract be­tween the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, head­ed by the chair­man of the board of the TTRA, Nigel Ed­wards.

“He is the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion, and the la­dy in ques­tion, Pat­sy Latch­man-At­ter­bury, is the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Grace Kennedy Cap­i­tal, and they signed on the dot­ted line to joint­ly en­gage in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mu­tu­al funds in Ja­maica. So you see what’s go­ing on here? These are pal­ly wal­lies. This is a con­flict of in­ter­est,” he added.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al al­so de­nounced the se­lec­tion of Latch­man-At­ter­bury for di­rec­tor gen­er­al, as she claimed Latch­man-At­ter­bury had ze­ro ex­pe­ri­ence in the pub­lic sec­tor.

Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said, “You are es­sen­tial­ly say­ing this per­son with no ex­pe­ri­ence in tax­a­tion, no ex­pe­ri­ence in the col­lec­tion of tax­es and levy­ing of Cus­toms, no ex­pe­ri­ence in pub­lic pol­i­cy, and no ex­pe­ri­ence in ad­vis­ing gov­ern­ments on pub­lic pol­i­cy is sup­posed to car­ry out this func­tion.

“There will be very heavy re­liance on the per­sons who are com­ing in­to that or­gan­i­sa­tion and com­ing in­to an or­gan­i­sa­tion un­der very con­tentious cir­cum­stances to con­tin­ue to ex­ist right now,” she added.

She al­so said that dur­ing a re­cruit­ment ex­er­cise that al­leged­ly cost $120,000, an­oth­er can­di­date with ex­pe­ri­ence was de­nied.

But both Thomas-Brown and Ju­man are sub­ject-mat­ter ex­perts and ca­reer pub­lic ser­vants, ac­cord­ing to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

But de­spite not hav­ing ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in tax­a­tion, Latch­man-At­ter­bury’s re­sume tells the sto­ry of decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in se­nior man­age­ment po­si­tions, and that might just be enough to qual­i­fy her, ac­cord­ing to some in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

Vot­ing for her ap­point­ment in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my said she be­lieves Latch­man-At­ter­bury was go­ing to need sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED), per­son­nel now merged and re­placed by the TTRA, the board of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, and the Min­istry of Fi­nance, to en­sure that they suc­ceed in this very im­por­tant new en­ti­ty.

Dr Dil­lon Re­my ac­knowl­edged Latch­man-At­ter­bury as a “per­son high­ly qual­i­fied.” How­ev­er, she did share her con­cerns about Latch­man-At­ter­bury not be­ing a part of the lo­cal work­force for the last 28 years.

She said, “The cul­tures ... My un­der­stand­ing is there has been a lot to be de­sired, a lot to be changed. So, if this per­son is com­ing in­to an en­vi­ron­ment where you have to be putting a new cul­ture in the en­vi­ron­ment. In an en­vi­ron­ment where the gen­er­al con­text is one that says, ‘This is the way we like it and this is the way we’re go­ing to do it,’ this per­son or these per­sons are go­ing to have a great chal­lenge.”

The TTRA was es­tab­lished by an act passed in 2021.

Ex­ten­sions giv­en to re­port on bills

Dur­ing the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, the Spe­cial Se­lect Com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to re­port on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Tri­al By Judge Alone) Bill, 2023, and the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to re­port on the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple (Amend­ment) (No 2) Bill, 2020, were both grant­ed an ex­ten­sion to May 31 and June 30 to com­plete their work, re­spec­tive­ly.

Both mo­tions were moved by Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne.