KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

In­com­ing Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) chair­man Ian De Souza says he is not daunt­ed by the task giv­en to him, de­spite the body com­ing un­der heavy crit­i­cism for its re­cent re­port which has rec­om­mend­ed hefty salary in­creas­es for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

De Souza had no hand in the re­port that has rec­om­mend­ed in­creas­es to the salaries of the prime min­is­ter, pres­i­dent, op­po­si­tion leader and oth­er high-rank­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials. How­ev­er, he said he un­der­stands the process the SRC us­es to make its de­ci­sions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, De Souza said he ac­cept­ed the ap­point­ment be­cause he al­ways want­ed to do ser­vice to T&T, and the SRC al­lows him to do that in an in­de­pen­dent fash­ion, as it is not a po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ment.

“For me, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to give back to Trinidad & To­ba­go, which has treat­ed me and my fam­i­ly very well, and I feel that sense of oblig­a­tion to give back by way of ser­vice, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a ca­pac­i­ty of this na­ture,” De Souza said.

De Souza took the oath of of­fice be­fore Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo at a cer­e­mo­ny at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent on Sat­ur­day. He re­places out­go­ing chair­man Nicole Fer­reira-Aaron, who served her three-year tenure.

Yes­ter­day, he said he wants to achieve what­ev­er is re­quired of he job, not­ing its work is in align­ment with his cor­po­rate ex­pe­ri­ence, in­clud­ing the eval­u­a­tion of jobs, job pric­ing, and mar­ket prices. Giv­en this is the same method­ol­o­gy the SRC ap­plies, he looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing this kind of work.

“I can­not be daunt­ed as chair­man of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause that process they fol­lowed is a well-known in­ter­na­tion­al process. It is very le­git­i­mate and as you know, I am a banker, and it is that iden­ti­cal process that has been ap­plied in the or­gan­i­sa­tions in which I have and con­tin­ue to work.”

De Souza said for peo­ple to un­der­stand what the SRC does, it calls for the re­moval of emo­tion and a recog­ni­tion that jobs have par­tic­u­lar val­ues.

In the cor­po­rate world, he said these are based on the re­quired qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the of­fice, job con­tents, the im­pact of de­ci­sions made by the of­fice hold­er and the scope of in­flu­ence. He said these de­ter­mine the grad­ing of a job in any or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture to gen­er­ate a prop­er job de­scrip­tion.

“You are then able to place the job in a struc­ture and once you have done that, you are then able to go to mar­ket to look at com­pa­ra­ble jobs, which they call com­para­tors. Once you have com­para­tors, you then come back to your struc­ture, and you are then able to say, ‘well, based on how the job has been de­scribed and grad­ed, giv­en what per­tains in the mar­ket, this is where this job should be priced, at least in a range.’”

From there, the eval­u­a­tors will de­ter­mine oth­er as­pects dri­ven by per­for­mance rel­a­tive to set tar­gets.

“So you have the fixed part, and you have the in­cen­tive part of it.”

De Souza hopes to meet oth­er com­mis­sion­ers this week and has al­ready had a chat with SRC mem­ber Dr Daryl Din­di­al.

More about De Souza

A state­ment from the Pres­i­dent’s Of­fice stat­ed that De Souza has a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in the fi­nance and bank­ing in­dus­try and is the prin­ci­pal ad­vi­sor at Ad­vice Fi­nan­cial Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Af­ter achiev­ing a Bach­e­lor Of Sci­ence in Eco­nom­ics in 1982 from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, he went on to gain a diplo­ma in Man­age­ment Stud­ies and an Ex­ec­u­tive MBA in 1999. Af­ter work­ing for two years as vice pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate and Com­mer­cial Bank­ing at Citibank T&T Ltd, De Souza moved to var­i­ous ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions in the Re­pub­lic Bank Group, first in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and lat­er in Bar­ba­dos, be­com­ing the Group Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor in 2016.

Hav­ing par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ad­vanced Man­age­ment Pro­gramme at Har­vard Busi­ness School and hav­ing be­come a Char­tered Pro­fes­sion­al Ac­coun­tant in 2011, a Cer­ti­fied In­sol­ven­cy and Re­struc­tur­ing Ad­vi­sor in 2013 and the hold­er of a Grad­u­ate Cer­tifi­cate in Foren­sic Ac­count­ing and Fraud Ex­am­i­na­tion from 2019, De Souza en­tered the aca­d­e­m­ic world as a Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice, Bank­ing, and Fi­nance and the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor & CEO of the Cave Hill School of Busi­ness & Man­age­ment.

Fol­low­ing a brief stint as in­ter­im CEO of Capi­ta Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices In­cor­po­rat­ed, De Souza is now the Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd. He is al­so a mem­ber of the board of ANSA Mer­chant Bank (Bar­ba­dos) Ltd and chair­man of the Au­dit Com­mit­tee of the Re­tail Sec­tor Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil of ANSA McAL Ltd.