http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/CREED--PMS-PICK-293766651.htmlCREED PM’S PICK
Acting on advice of Public Service head...
By Ria Taitt Political Editor
Story Created: Feb 23, 2015 at 10:14 PM ECT
Story Updated: Feb 23, 2015 at 10:14 PM ECT
It was the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar who, acting on a recommendation from the Head of the Public Service and Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister, Reynold Cooper, moved Ashwin Creed from the Sport Ministry and assigned him to the Office of the Prime Minister as a Permanent Secretary.
Asked yesterday who had the constitutional authority to transfer Creed from the Ministry of Sport to the Prime Minister’s Office, Cooper said according to Section 121, subsection 6 of the Constitution, that power resides with the Prime Minister.
“That is the constitutional position. But what would happen is that I would go to the Prime Minister and say, ‘Listen, we have a vacancy here (in the Prime Minister’s office). Because there is a PS in all the ministries. There is currently no ministry out there without a PS. So if he is coming back in, you have to make room for him and there is a vacancy here in the Office of the Prime Minister, so he is being placed in a vacant position. And I was the one who said, ‘Listen, put him here because there is a vacancy’,” he said.
Quoting Section 121, subsection 6, Cooper said: “The power to make appointments on transfer to the following offices shall vest in the Prime Minister a) Any office of Permanent Secretary from one such office to another such office carrying the same salary”.
This contrasts with statements made on Sunday by Communications Minister Vasant Bharath who had said the Prime Minister and the Government had no power to intervene in this issue.
Cooper said placing Creed in any other ministry would have meant a certain measure of disruption, since a PS (in whatever other ministry he went to) would have had to be moved.
“The Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance and the Economy are the only two ministries with more than one Permanent Secretary,” Cooper stated.
However, Cooper said Creed was not the accounting officer in the Prime Minister’s office, it was he (Cooper), the more senior officer and the substantive Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister.
“There is only one accounting office in every ministry. You can’t have four persons dipping into one pool of money,” Cooper said, adding that this would be a recipe for confusion.
Under the Exchequer and Audit regulation, it is the Minister of Finance who selects the accounting officer in each ministry, he stated.
Cooper also explained the Public Service Commission (PSC) was not involved in this matter because Creed was on vacation leave, not pre-retirement leave.
Cooper said Creed went on vacation in May/June of last year. He said while Creed was on vacation leave he wrote to the director of Human Resources in the Ministry of Sport indicating that he wanted to retire with immediate effect.
The director stated he could not retire immediately because he was on vacation leave and that his retirement therefore takes effect at the end of the vacation leave, which was supposed to end in April of this year.
However, Cooper said Creed in January called him to say he wanted to revoke that letter (which he had requested immediate retirement) and he wanted to come back out to work.
“And, I told him, ‘Okay, give me enough time,’ because I wanted to make sure that I had a position available. Because remember he was on leave and while he was on leave, someone was placed at the Ministry of Sport (as Permanent Secretary). And he have a new Minister (of Sport). To disrupt the flow of things after the new Minister has gotten accustomed (to that PS)...”.
Cooper said people were looking at Creed’s assignment to the Office of the Prime Minister as a “clandestine thing” but it was nothing like that.
However, Creed, who was originally due to return to work yesterday, has requested additional time to attend to some personal business,
“He said he would call me to let me know,” Cooper said, when asked when exactly Creed would be reporting for duty.
Told that Creed appeared to have tremendous flexibility in determining when he would report for duty, Cooper said: “He would probably call me tomorrow. I won’t force him... it is a human being that I am dealing with... He called and said he had some things he was doing and he needed some time.”
Cooper continued: “He was due to come out on Monday, but he decided not to.”
Cooper said Creed will be 59 years old this April. He said if he had retired this year as he originally requested, it would have been a voluntary retirement because compulsory retirement for him—that is at the age of 60—would be due in April, 2016.
Cooper said this was why the PSC did not have to sign off on anything because Creed was on vacation leave. And it was not even vacation leave prior to retirement, since Creed’s vacation leave was ending a whole year before his retirement date (of April 2016), Cooper noted.
He said in the Public Service one can accumulate vacation up to 90 days, after which one has to get the permission of the Permanent Secretary or in the case of a Permanent Secretary, the Head of the Public Service.
Creed and LifeSport
Ashwin Creed was the Permanent Secretary and accounting officer in the Ministry of Sport during the entire period of the LifeSport scandal.
The controversial programme which absorbed over $400 million in taxpayers money, was disbanded following damning findings of the Ministry of Finance’s Central Audit Committee (CAC).
That audit concluded that LifeSport was plagued with fraud, mismanagement, theft, questionable payments and other illegal activities. The report was referred by the Prime Minister to the Integrity Commission, the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions for further investigations.
As Permanent Secretary Creed had financial responsibility for the disbursement of funds in the ministry, which had oversight of the programme. He had the power to intervene to deal with any abuses on the programme, but such abuses went unchallenged by the ministry. One such abuse was the payment of $34 million to one contractor, Adolphus Daniell, for doing absolutely nothing. That contractor has refused to return the money.
Creed left the country suddenly on May 13, 2014, after alleged death threats against his life for the execution of the LifeSport programme. He has said, however, that he was on leave at the time.
Creed and three former directors of the LifeSport programme have filed for judicial review of the Report of the CAC. Then sport minister Anil Roberts resigned following the tabling of the report of the CAC.