THE Opposition says Prime Minister Andrew Holness made a bad decision in appointing Edward Gabbidon to chair the board of the Human Employment and Resource Training /National Service Training Agency (HEART/NSTA) Trust, and made it worse by expressing confidence in the now-resigned chairman in Parliament last week.

News of Gabbidon’s resignation came on Monday following questions about a conflict of interest between his technology consulting company and the Trust. The company has been doing business with the State agency for more than a decade.

Gabbidon said the company, Sycon, had adhered to all government procurement guidelines in its dealings with HEART/NSTA, and that he had not sat on the board’s subcommittee which made procurement decisions.

Yesterday, Opposition spokesman on the public service Senator Lambert Brown told the Jamaica Observer that any conflict of interest should be regarded as a red flag.

“If somebody has a conflict of interest, then don’t appoint them to that post… we should take them into account when taking decisions. Clearly in the HEART Trust case that wasn’t taken into account and now we are seeing the result of that. It was bad judgement by the prime minister in making the appointment in the first place, and worse judgement by the prime minister by going into Parliament and declaring that he has confidence in the person,” Brown stated.

In Parliament last week Holness had said he would not have appointed someone in whom he had no confidence. “I do have confidence in that person who is the chairman of HEART that if there were any conflict or connected party issues that they would have been declared to the prescribed authority; and, if he was a part of any decision-making process to be party or beneficiary to any contract that he would recuse himself from it,” Holness said.

He cautioned against weaponising conflicts of interest, saying, “Not every conflict of interest suggests corruption. In a small country like Jamaica it is almost going to be inescapable, and that is why you have these standards, that is why we have the Integrity Commission and MOCA [Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency] to investigate and dig them up.

“We have to be careful how we seem to vilify persons who enter public life to give service. We are doing everything possible to ensure that there is transparency and probity [but] we also have to increase the public’s understanding of the governance issues. One of the things we are concerned about is — if we will have people who are willing to serve — if we weaponise these things where simple things can turn out into the demonisation and destruction of people’s character and integrity. We have to be fair,” Holness argued.

He said regardless of which Administration is governing the country, the situation won’t change, as the pool of people available to serve on boards is not exclusively aligned to either political party.

“They are Jamaicans, so how we treat with these issues, there has to be a greater level of maturity [and] honesty,” the prime minister said.

In response to questions about a $5.6-million four-day planning retreat hosted by HEART/NSTA Trust at Moon Palace Hotel in Ocho Rios, St Ann, in October, Holness said that failures do not only occur at the board level, but also at the staff level, and that it is oftentimes difficult to address those due to Government’s own systems.

However, yesterday Brown argued that it is the duty of boards and supervising committees, such as human resource committees and audit committees, to make recommendations to the full board as to how matters are to be dealt with.

“No manager is above the law, and where you get into difficulty is if you take action without evidence and without giving the person a chance to respond to the allegation. So it is a cop-out for any Government, from any side, to say [it’s hard] to take action against managerial personnel for failing to fulfil their obligations…it’s not difficult.”

Asked to comment on that issue, senior trade unionist Vincent Morrison said there is no comparison between failure at the board level and at the staff level.

“I think the prime minister is totally off-cue to try to compare some of the things that happen at board levels, or presumed to be happening in the ministries,” he said, pointing to the situation at HEART.

He said in most of these situations there is an obvious lack of proper ministerial oversight, monitoring, direction, and assessment of the operations and conduct of boards.

At the same time, Morrison believes the public sector has, in fact, been better off as a result of the issues that have been coming to light at the board level.

“There is more control, there is more day-to-day examination of what is happening in the various ministries and, going forward, the public sector will be better off. The public sector has its challenges, like any other group, but you have some very good permanent secretaries who are very strong, very fair, and who are on the top of their job — right across the sector,” he insisted.