GECOM’s Chair used a testimonial and not applicants’ academic qualifications for consideration

Though belated, it would be remiss of me not to respond to Dr. Bisram`s latest epistle on the Vishnu Persaud appointment. May I refer to my response as gospel, albeit in letter form, since it does two things: it corrects inaccuracies in Bisram`s letter and refutes his contentions. It is ironical that my previous letter on this matter is referred to as ‘raving and ranting’ but attracts a response of approximately seven columns from Dr. Vishnu Bisram. I do not intend, in my point by point response, to be equally verbose. Firstly, may I advise Dr. Bisram, that I reserve the right to be constructively critical of the Chairperson. I do not regard it as an attack on her, and will, whenever necessary, hold the Chair or anyone accountable, for their decisions and/or actions. Accountability is one of the elements of Good Governance, which we should all embrace. The Chair is not exempted.

I never argued that Mr. Persaud did not have the required academic qualifications for the job. What I argued is that his qualification was inferior to his competitor`s, and that in a competitive process, the classification of the qualifications have to be taken into consideration, especially when values are ostensibly attributed to qualifications in the evaluation process. That is one way to determine who is more ‘academically’ qualified for the job and is a ‘gold standard’ in job interviews. It should be noted that my contention was not limited to academic qualifications. I dealt with procedural and substantive flaws. Bisram`s contention that GECOM ‘has a process which has to be followed’, is as flawed as GECOM`s process. GECOM refused to use an instrument as the basis for evaluation. It reduced its instrument to the status of a guideline, and allowed for voting to be the basis of the determination, albeit there were oral presentations. In that circumstance, the Chairperson in delivering her “Ruling”, made absolutely no reference to, considered, nor compared the applicants` academic qualifications, although in the guidelines, the highest value was attributed to qualifications.

However, she contended that a testimonial, a document not listed for consideration in the ‘guideline’, and not normally considered until the quantitative evaluation is completed, was a major plank on which she premised her “Ruling”. To wit, that testimonial should not have been considered, since the author was the one who brought Mr. Persaud to the organization, on invitation, where he served as his ‘de facto personal assistant’, and was chaperoned by him into the position of Deputy Chief Election Officer by deeming a level 5 qualification to be equivalent to a bachelor`s degree, when in fact, the UK Qualifications Framework, which determines those matters, clearly states that level 5 is not equivalent to a bachelor`s degree. Most egregious was the fact that the ‘Ruling’ was given, without pause, after the presentations of the Commissioners, but purported to have taken those presentations into consideration. Dr. Bisram also