Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

An in­com­ing mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) who faced ob­jec­tions from the Op­po­si­tion is de­fend­ing him­self against claims of mis­con­duct re­lat­ed to his tenure as a se­nior hu­man re­source an­a­lyst at Petrotrin.

Dur­ing the de­bate to ap­prove the five nom­i­nees on Mon­day, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal ref­er­enced com­ments by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent dat­ed No­vem­ber 12. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had deemed Roger Ba­booram un­suit­able for the role be­cause of a now-con­clud­ed case be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court in which he had pro­vid­ed tes­ti­mo­ny. The Op­po­si­tion claimed the court’s find­ings, along with al­le­ga­tions and ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed dur­ing the case, raised ques­tions about Ba­booram’s con­duct and cred­i­bil­i­ty.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ba­booram de­fend­ed his in­tegri­ty and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, firm­ly stat­ing that the case was re­solved in his favour.

“I was a bit tak­en aback by that but I’m not too en­tire­ly clear what that was about,” he said.

“He (Mooni­lal) re­ferred to OW­TU ver­sus Petrotrin. While I was at Petrotrin my con­duct was nev­er called in­to ques­tion. I nev­er had any is­sues in terms of dis­ci­pline or any­thing like that ... in none of my judg­ments, ac­tu­al­ly. I think, if he’s al­lud­ing to a case that I’m see­ing on Google there, the case was dis­missed in favour of Petrotrin which I rep­re­sent­ed, so I just think he prob­a­bly mis­in­ter­pret­ed what he read.”

Asked if he be­lieved the op­po­si­tion’s ob­jec­tions were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, Ba­booram de­clined to com­ment.

Dr Mooni­lal said the op­po­si­tion’s po­si­tion re­mains un­changed. “He is en­ti­tled to his view. The Hansard re­flects the con­cerns of the Op­po­si­tion.”

On Mon­day, a di­vid­ed Low­er House ap­proved Ba­booram, Dr Wen­dell C Wal­lace, An­ni­ka Fritz-Browne, Ethel Hec­tor-Berke­ley and re­turn­ing mem­ber Ian Kevin Ramd­hanie.

The UNC re­ject­ed three nom­i­nees. Dr Wal­lace faced ob­jec­tions for an ar­ti­cle he au­thored ti­tled “Mass shoot­ings are here to stay,” which Mooni­lal ar­gued un­der­mines con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty to ad­dress crime. Wal­lace’s role as a com­mis­sion­er at the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) was al­so crit­i­cised, with Mooni­lal sug­gest­ing it could lead to “se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions.”

Ramd­hanie was al­so re­ject­ed due to a per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est. He leads the Caribbean In­sti­tute for Pub­lic Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty, the sub­sidiary of a firm that con­ducts sig­nif­i­cant busi­ness with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Dur­ing the de­bate, Dr Mooni­lal al­so raised con­cerns about in­suf­fi­cient time for thor­ough vet­ting of the nom­i­nees.

When con­tact­ed, both Ramd­hanie and Dr Wal­lace de­clined com­ment.

There is no of­fi­cial word yet on when the five ap­proved mem­bers will re­ceive their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment.