Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There were well over 100 ap­pli­cants for the Trade Min­istry’s posts of com­mer­cial of­fi­cers and at­tach­es to which five peo­ple - in­clud­ing fired Sports Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith - were ap­point­ed in Ju­ly. Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said the mer­it list for the se­lec­tion of the of­fi­cers is avail­able.

She gave the as­sur­ance in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der on the ap­point­ments which were made in Ju­ly for the three com­mer­cial of­fi­cers and two com­mer­cial at­tach­es who will op­er­ate in T&T’s diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests. Two more at­tach­es will be ap­point­ed lat­er.

Ly­der asked about the se­lec­tion process used in ar­riv­ing at the fi­nal list of suc­cess­ful can­di­dates for the posts.

Smith, who was fired as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter in 2018, was ap­point­ed as a com­mer­cial of­fi­cer based in the Unit­ed States and al­so re­spon­si­ble for Cana­da. In 2020 Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley said Smith was fired for im­prop­er­ly in­ter­fer­ing in the pub­lic ser­vice and point­ed out that his dis­missal had noth­ing to do with sex­u­al ha­rass­ment.

Yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to Ly­der’s ques­tions, Gopee-Scoon de­tailed the se­lec­tion process for ar­riv­ing at the fi­nal list of suc­cess­ful can­di­dates.

She said the po­si­tions were ad­ver­tised in two dai­ly news­pa­pers be­tween Sep­tem­ber 30 and Oc­to­ber 14, 2022, invit­ing ap­pli­cants to ap­ply for the va­can­cies. Ap­pli­cants were short­list­ed based on pos­ses­sion of the re­quired qual­i­fi­ca­tions, skills, at­trib­ut­es and work ex­pe­ri­ence for the po­si­tions.

The ap­pli­cants for com­mer­cial of­fi­cers were re­quired to have a Mas­ter’s de­gree in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, or Eco­nom­ics, as well as con­sid­er­able knowl­edge and at least five years of ex­pe­ri­ence in in­ter­na­tion­al trade in ad­di­tion to a min­i­mum of five years of ex­pe­ri­ence in busi­ness work­ing at a se­nior man­age­r­i­al po­si­tion.

Ad­vanced, na­tive lev­el of pro­fi­cien­cy in the lan­guage of the host coun­try, ex­pe­ri­ence in un­der­tak­ing busi­ness de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties, pro­fi­cien­cy in sales plan­ning and mar­ket re­search and ex­cel­lent ne­go­ti­at­ing skills were the oth­er req uire­ments.

The ap­pli­cants for com­mer­cial at­tachés were short­list­ed based on hav­ing a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions or Eco­nom­ics and five years of ex­pe­ri­ence in pri­vate sec­tor trade out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties or with pub­lic sec­tor in­sti­tu­tions in­volved in trade pro­mo­tion, in ad­di­tion to train­ing in diplo­ma­cy and pro­to­cols.

Oth­er re­quire­ments were ex­pe­ri­ence in busi­ness de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties, knowl­edge of T&T’s trade agree­ments, pro­fi­cien­cy in sales plan­ning and mar­ket re­search and ex­cel­lent ne­go­ti­at­ing skills.

Gopee-Scoon said: “Dur­ing 20 De­cem­ber 2022, to 19 Jan­u­ary 2023, in­ter­views were con­duct­ed for the po­si­tions. In­ter­view ques­tions were de­rived from the job de­scrip­tion and de­signed to elic­it be­hav­iour­al ev­i­dence of com­pe­ten­cies in the pri­ma­ry job ac­tiv­i­ties for the po­si­tion.

“Can­di­dates un­der­went an as­sess­ment based on their com­pe­ten­cies in the ar­eas of sales plan­ning, mar­ket re­search, ne­go­ti­a­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills by a pan­el com­pris­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istries of Trade and In­dus­try and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and ex­porTT Lim­it­ed. The top-scor­ing can­di­dates were se­lect­ed and of­fered the ad­ver­tised po­si­tions.

Gopee-Scoon said there were well over 100 ap­pli­cants.

The min­is­ter said the two ad­di­tion­al com­mer­cial at­tach­es haven’t been ap­point­ed yet.

“We want to en­sure the sys­tem is work­ing prop­er­ly be­fore we take on two fur­ther com­mer­cial at­tach­es. But all of the com­mer­cial of­fi­cers and the two at­tach­es cho­sen present­ly are out on the field in their re­spec­tive coun­tries and per­form­ing their du­ties.”