Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke has been hired by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) as a con­sul­tant in hu­man re­sources and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, both he and the com­pa­ny have con­firmed.

In a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Duke said, “At NGC, my role is to ad­vise on hu­man re­source and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sues. As you know, they have op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go at Cove, and I will con­tin­ue to pro­vide ad­vice in both To­ba­go and Trinidad. I am very hap­py and elat­ed to be a To­bag­on­ian work­ing with NGC, mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions that can be felt in the fur­ther­ance of the com­pa­ny’s ob­jec­tives and the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man cap­i­tal in our coun­try.”

Asked whether Cove was plan­ning any ma­jor re­struc­tur­ing or hir­ing or fir­ing ex­er­cis­es, and whether his en­gage­ment was for a spe­cif­ic time­frame or project, Duke said on­ly, “I’m there as an in­de­pen­dent con­sul­tant to pro­vide ad­vice on any mat­ter con­cern­ing hu­man re­sources and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, as di­rect­ed.”

Duke re­signed from the union af­ter 12 years at age 45 in De­cem­ber 2021. He al­so found­ed the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) and led the par­ty to a 14–1 vic­to­ry in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly be­fore lat­er split­ting with Far­ley Au­gus­tine, who went on to form the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

Duke added, “I’m a pro­fes­sion­al both on the field and off the field, in the class­room and out of the class­room. Un­like my good po­lit­i­cal friend, who was some­where with­in that vicin­i­ty work­ing and no one could see what he was do­ing—ex­cept on pa­per that he was some ad­vi­sor—my con­tri­bu­tions can be felt and will be felt in a very pos­i­tive and pow­er­ful man­ner.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the “po­lit­i­cal friend” ref­er­enced was As­sem­bly­man Joel Jack.

Duke’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed when he did not con­test the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, in­stead throw­ing the sup­port of the PDP be­hind the TPP.

Duke has a bach­e­lor’s de­gree in In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.
Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, he worked as a teacher and lat­er as a trade union­ist, serv­ing as the Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go branch of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA).

In a state­ment, NGC said, “Mr Duke has been hired as a hu­man re­source con­sul­tant. He brings a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and a unique knowl­edge of our sis­ter isle, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­vel­op hu­man re­sources in To­ba­go, as we seek to ex­pand op­er­a­tions through­out the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to as­sets at the Cove In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.”

Guardian Me­dia sent sev­er­al ques­tions to NGC seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion of Duke’s en­gage­ment, in­clud­ing the scope of his role, whether it is linked to any re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise, the du­ra­tion of the con­tract, and the val­ue of the con­sul­tan­cy.

Nei­ther Duke nor the com­pa­ny dis­closed de­tails of his salary or re­mu­ner­a­tion.

In­dus­try ex­perts say there is no fixed salary range for con­sul­tants, with com­pen­sa­tion vary­ing wide­ly de­pend­ing on the scope of work, du­ra­tion, and ser­vices re­quired. In some cas­es, con­sul­tants may re­ceive a month­ly re­tain­er that can reach tens of thou­sands of dol­lars, while in oth­ers they may be paid a sin­gle fee for the en­tire en­gage­ment.

The com­pa­ny de­clined fur­ther com­ment.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed NGC chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen, who re­ferred on­ly to the com­pa­ny’s state­ment.

Sev­er­al calls and What­sApp mes­sages to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal went unan­swered.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly said Duke had asked her for a job.

On May 29 last year, dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “If I were to be bru­tal­ly hon­est, Wat­son Duke did send me con­grat­u­la­tions and every good word. He al­so asked me for a job. I’ll be hon­est—I did re­ceive it, and cer­tain­ly we are con­sid­er­ing it.”