SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes yes­ter­day ap­pealed to the chair­men of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal (EOT) and the Fair Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) who were both sworn in yes­ter­day that while there may be lit­tle grat­i­tude in serv­ing coun­try, they should ex­e­cute their jobs faith­ful­ly and well.

This was the mes­sage Weekes de­liv­ered in her first of­fi­cial swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s Cot­tage, St Ann’s, since her pres­i­den­tial in­au­gu­ra­tion on March 19.

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon was sworn in as chair­man of the FTC, along with com­mis­sion­ers Christo­pher Sieuc­hand (an at­tor­ney), CEO of Jaleel Dis­trib­u­tors Ltd Dr Mikaeel Mo­hammed and Den­nis Scott, who holds a Mas­ter in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

At­tor­ney Don­na Prow­ell-Raphael was ap­point­ed chair­man of the EOT.

In the past, all swear­ing-in cer­e­monies, host­ed by then pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Ca­mona, were held in the cramped Pres­i­dent’s Of­fice.

Be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny, guests were ad­vised by Weekes’ aide-de-camp Ma­jor Mo­hammed that they were not al­lowed any self­ies with the Pres­i­dent.

In a sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny, the com­mis­sion­ers and chair­men re­cit­ed their oaths at the ros­trum and af­fixed their sig­na­tures on the oath book, while Weekes re­mained seat­ed a few feet away.

There­after, Weekes signed the book, gave them a con­grat­u­la­to­ry hand­shake, brought greet­ings and in­vit­ed guests to light re­fresh­ments in a room next door which the me­dia was pre­vent­ed from en­ter­ing.

In pre­vi­ous swear­ing-ins, Car­mona op­er­at­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, in that af­ter each com­mis­sion­er or chair­man took their oaths and signed the book, he would af­fix his sig­na­ture while stand­ing next to them at the ros­trum. There was al­so no re­fresh­ments served.

Cher­ly Ann Lala, com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, when asked if prop­er pro­ce­dure was fol­lowed for the swear­ing-in, said she could not say, stat­ing that this was her first cer­e­mo­ny.

“The pro­to­col per­son would have tak­en care of that. I have been told by a pro­to­col of­fi­cial that the new “P” in pro­to­col is pref­er­ence. And so each new per­son has a way of do­ing things. Maybe, this is the new way. We have a new Pres­i­dent, I don’t know,” Lala said.

In bring­ing greet­ings, Weekes de­scribed the cer­e­mo­ny as a mass swear­ing-in, stat­ing that it turned out to be the most con­ve­nient thing at the end of the day and for them to get to know each oth­er if they hadn’t.

“It’s al­most like the cour­t­house be­cause I see a few lawyers …fa­mil­iar faces.”

Weekes ad­mit­ted to be­ing fa­mil­iar with Prow­ell-Raphael and Sieuc­hand while she knew Ramkissoon based on his rep­u­ta­tion. Com­mis­sion­ers Mo­hammed and Scott were new to her.

“But if re­sumes and good looks are any­thing to go by, I am sure the com­mis­sions in the tri­bunal are all in good hands,” Weekes said as she thanked them for their will­ing­ness to serve.

“As we all know times are a lit­tle chal­leng­ing and that is what makes ser­vice all the more im­por­tant. There would be lit­tle that would be more grat­i­fy­ing at the end of the day than to know that you have served your coun­try faith­ful­ly and well…even though there would not al­ways be grat­i­tude for it. But nev­er mind that, you will have your sat­is­fac­tion from do­ing your du­ty,” Weekes said.

De­van Nar­i­nesingh, FTC’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor ad­mit­ted that the com­mis­sion’s law was not ful­ly en­forced.

Ramkissoon said he hoped that busi­ness­es would un­der­stand that an­ti-com­pet­i­tive be­hav­iour was a dis­ad­van­tage to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

“Our work will very much be based on re­search and sci­en­tif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tions. We are not about witch-hunt­ing and mak­ing de­ci­sions with­out ev­i­dence. We would warn and cau­tion against an­ti-com­pet­i­tive be­hav­iour be­fore we take the next step,” Ramkissoon said.