Gail Alexan­der

Paul Gab­badon, who chairs the Caribbean Fish­eries Train­ing and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute’s (CFT­DI) man­age­ment com­mit­tee, is al­so act­ing as in­sti­tute prin­ci­pal - and be­ing com­pen­sat­ed with the base salary of $21,138 and al­lowances in the sum of $1,100.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Clarence Ramb­harat, who con­firmed this in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, clashed with UNC Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts over the sit­u­a­tion.

Ramb­harat said CFT­DI is man­aged by a prin­ci­pal re­port­ing to the man­age­ment com­mit­tee. The last prin­ci­pal, who of­fi­cial­ly re­tired on June 9, 2012, was em­ployed on con­tract un­til de­par­ture in Sep­tem­ber 2019.

“In the ab­sence of a prin­ci­pal, the man­age­ment com­mit­tee, guid­ed by the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry, con­tin­ued to man­age CFT­DI’s af­fairs. In March 2020, Cab­i­net ap­proved the ad­ver­tise­ment and re­cruit­ment a prin­ci­pal and un­til such re­cruit­ment and ap­point­ment, for the chair­man of the man­age­ment com­mit­tee to per­form the func­tions of prin­ci­pal.”

Ramb­harat said from Sep­tem­ber 18, 2019, com­mit­tee chair­man Gab­badon per­formed the func­tions of the prin­ci­pal. He list­ed Gab­badon’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and his work in the ma­rine and aqua­cul­ture sec­tor for over 40 years, lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Fol­low­ing Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion, the in­sti­tute ad­ver­tised the po­si­tion of prin­ci­pal from De­cem­ber 3, 2020 to De­cem­ber 28, 2020.

“The pub­li­ca­tion was de­layed be­cause of the on­set of COVID-19 re­stric­tions and the re­duc­tion in ac­tiv­i­ty at the in­sti­tute, low up­take of stu­dents and in sum­ma­ry, the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on the day to day op­er­a­tions of the In­sti­tute.”

“Based on re­spons­es to the ad­ver­tise­ment, a short­list was de­vel­oped and a po­ten­tial can­di­date for the role was iden­ti­fied. With con­tin­u­a­tion of the COVID-19 re­stric­tions in­to 2021 and the lock­down/cur­few from May 2021, the po­si­tion wasn’t filled.”

“At the same time, the min­istry has been seek­ing part­ner­ships for CFT­DI for the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of its ac­tiv­i­ties and is at an ad­vanced stage of dis­cus­sions with one pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ty. That agree­ment may change the scope of the po­si­tion of prin­ci­pal.

“The chair­man is, there­fore, con­tin­u­ing to per­form the func­tions of the prin­ci­pal in ad­di­tion to his func­tions as chair­man and is be­ing com­pen­sat­ed with the base salary of $21,138 and al­lowances in the sum of $1100.”

He added, “More re­cent­ly, the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) has ex­pressed in­ter­est in work­ing with the Min­istry in the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal seafood sec­tor and iden­ti­fied CFT­DI as a prospec­tive part­ner in that work. Those dis­cus­sions are at an ear­ly stage.”

On Robert’s com­plaints of poor cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and that Gab­badon should have for­gone the chair­man­ship, Ramb­harat said the sit­u­a­tion was ex­pect­ed to be short term, there was min­i­mal ac­tiv­i­ty and no risk since work was be­ing done on CFTI which is now on “life sup­port”.

He said he con­sid­ered Gab­badon well qual­i­fied and while it wasn’t a per­fect arrange­ment, the course was un­der­tak­en pre-pan­dem­ic, which changed cir­cum­stances.

Ramb­harat said when he en­tered the min­istry, he had to deal with $900,000 miss­ing - a mat­ter now be­ing pros­e­cut­ed - so Roberts was in no po­si­tion to talk of gov­er­nance.

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