The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs has ac­cept­ed full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for T&T's vote at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Amer­i­can States (OAS) which did not sup­port a waiv­er of fees for Do­mini­ca in the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Maria.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses made the an­nounce­ment in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to a ques­tion by the Op­po­si­tion as to what mea­sures his min­istry had in­sti­tut­ed to pre­vent the re-oc­cur­rence of T&T's vote at the OAS with re­spect to the con­tro­ver­sial Do­mini­can vote.

Moses said his min­istry has a well-known prac­tice and ac­cept­ed pro­ce­dures in place to ad­dress and adopt ap­pro­pri­ate po­si­tions at in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.

How­ev­er, Moses point­ed out that "these pro­ce­dures were not fol­lowed by the staff of the min­istry in this case."

As a re­sult of the staff fail­ing to fol­low es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures, Moses said "the per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T to the OAS ar­tic­u­lat­ed a po­si­tion at a meet­ing at the per­ma­nent coun­cil of the OAS in Wash­ing­ton USA on March 23, last year that did not re­flect the po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T on the re­quest by Do­mini­ca for a waiv­er of fees payable to the or­gan­i­sa­tion."

Do­mini­ca had asked for a waiv­er of fees for 2018 and 2019 in light of the dev­as­ta­tion caused by Maria last Sep­tem­ber.

But Trinidad’s per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the OAS An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer ob­ject­ed, opt­ed in­stead “for the de­fer­ral pay­ments of con­tri­bu­tions, and where pos­si­ble the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a pay­ment plan sub­ject to an­nu­al re­view.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, Moses said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley com­mis­sioned an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine the true facts, ad­dress ac­count­abil­i­ty and sub­mit guid­ance and rec­om­men­da­tions for ac­tion by the min­istry.

That in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­tak­en by for­mer Am­bas­sador Christo­pher Thomas and a re­port was sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment and Sen­ate last month.

Moses said it is stan­dard prac­tice that im­por­tant mat­ters such as a re­quest for a waiv­er on fees by Do­mini­ca due to the OAS "where the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of T&T is to be an­nounced must be brought" to him in good time.

In this case, Den­nis said his ap­proval and au­tho­ri­sa­tion for the rec­om­mend­ed po­si­tion was not sought nor ob­tained by the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary pri­or to pro­vid­ing in­struc­tions to the per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T to the OAS.

"In fact, the per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the OAS was giv­en in­struc­tions by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the min­istry that was com­plete­ly con­trary to the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance, tech­ni­cal sup­port, fel­low­ship and aid giv­en by T&T to Do­mini­ca in the af­ter­math of hur­ri­cane Maria."

Moses dis­closed that the "per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the min­istry at the time has since ac­cept­ed full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for her er­ror."

Com­ing out of this mat­ter and as rec­om­mend­ed in the re­port by Thomas, Moses said his min­istry will un­der­take train­ing and ori­en­ta­tion for diplo­mat­ic and head of­fice staff of es­tab­lished process­es and pro­ce­dures to en­sure prop­er con­duct in the fu­ture.

Moses said fol­low­ing the per­ma­nent coun­cil meet­ing, it was dis­cov­ered that a few min­utes be­fore the unau­tho­rised po­si­tion was tak­en by T&T's rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the meet­ing "a What­sApp mes­sage was sent to the min­is­ter (him) seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion that the po­si­tion com­mu­ni­cat­ed by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary was cor­rect. How­ev­er, this mes­sage con­tained no ex­pla­na­tion or de­tails of the mat­ter in ques­tion," Moses said.

Moses said such in­for­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion was deemed un­ac­cept­able, stat­ing that it was un­rea­son­able for him to be mon­i­tor­ing his phone for mes­sages and a mes­sage with­out an ex­pla­na­tion be­fore a vote was tak­en to adopt a po­si­tion can­not be deemed prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion.