National awards process explained

The Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee con­ducts care­ful vet­ting of nom­i­nees be­fore mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for na­tion­al ho­n­ours, ac­cord­ing to for­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Reynold Coop­er, who said it is al­so cus­tom­ary for the Chief Jus­tice to re­ceive the coun­try’s high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT).

Coop­er, who served on the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee for about five years be­fore re­tir­ing from the Pub­lic Ser­vice 11 years ago, said the com­mit­tee ex­am­ines in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted about nom­i­nees and can re­quest ad­di­tion­al doc­u­men­ta­tion when claims can­not be ver­i­fied.

His com­ments come amid pub­lic crit­i­cism over the 2026 awards, in­clud­ing the de­ci­sion to con­fer the ORTT on Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Sen­a­tor Wade Mark af­ter he used his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock in the Sen­ate on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

There has al­so been pub­lic dis­cus­sion over the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold award­ed to Syl­bert “Bell­man” Rob­ley, 78, of In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga.

Coop­er said the com­mit­tee does not as­sess a nom­i­nee based on one par­tic­u­lar ac­tion or event, but on the achieve­ments out­lined in the nom­i­na­tion.

“Peo­ple get an award based on their ac­com­plish­ments and what they have ac­com­plished,” he said.

“They may do some­thing which you prob­a­bly dis­agree with, but that is not, they are not judged on that. You may judge the per­son on that, but the com­mit­tee will not judge the per­son on that.”

Coop­er said nom­i­na­tions are sub­mit­ted on forms de­tail­ing a per­son’s ac­com­plish­ments and the com­mit­tee re­views the in­for­ma­tion be­fore de­cid­ing what award, if any, should be rec­om­mend­ed.

He said the com­mit­tee can re­ject nom­i­na­tions if the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed does not sat­is­fy its re­quire­ments and can al­so rec­om­mend a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry from the one re­quest­ed by the nom­i­na­tor.

“When I was on the com­mit­tee, we had to turn down ap­pli­ca­tions that peo­ple sent in,” he said.

He added that the com­mit­tee could de­ter­mine that a nom­i­nee put for­ward for a Cha­co­nia Gold, for ex­am­ple, should in­stead re­ceive a Cha­co­nia Sil­ver or a Hum­ming­bird Medal, de­pend­ing on the con­tri­bu­tion.

Coop­er said ver­i­fi­ca­tion was an im­por­tant part of the process.

“If there’s in­for­ma­tion that we can’t ver­i­fy, we’ll call the per­son in some form and say, ‘Send us doc­u­ments or send us some ev­i­dence that what the per­son did, they ac­tu­al­ly did,’” he said.

The com­mit­tee would then ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion be­fore mak­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions.

Coop­er said the process al­so in­volves the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net.

He ex­plained that af­ter the com­mit­tee makes its rec­om­men­da­tions, they go for­ward for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion, with Cab­i­net hav­ing the fi­nal de­ci­sion.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has said the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice, plays a cen­tral role in vet­ting nom­i­na­tions and rec­om­mend­ing re­cip­i­ents. The Pres­i­dent for­mal­ly con­fers the awards on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Coop­er said the Chief Jus­tice’s re­ceipt of the ORTT was not un­usu­al.

“There are cer­tain po­si­tions that … the Chief Jus­tice … will get the ORTT,” he said, ex­plain­ing that the award has tra­di­tion­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied the of­fice.

He said that should be un­der­stood in the con­text of the po­si­tion rather than viewed as a de­ci­sion based sole­ly on an in­di­vid­ual’s per­son­al ac­com­plish­ments.

Rob­ley has been de­scribed as a com­mu­ni­ty and spir­i­tu­al leader who has spent more than five decades as­sist­ing se­nior cit­i­zens, guid­ing young peo­ple and sup­port­ing fam­i­lies in In­di­an Walk. He al­so served with the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion and has been in­volved in the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith for more than 64 years.

Coop­er said the com­mit­tee’s work was in­tend­ed to en­sure that nom­i­nees’ con­tri­bu­tions were prop­er­ly ex­am­ined be­fore an award was rec­om­mend­ed.

He said peo­ple may dis­agree with an award, but the com­mit­tee’s role was to con­sid­er the in­for­ma­tion be­fore it and de­ter­mine whether the nom­i­nee met the re­quire­ments.

Coop­er al­so ex­pressed a per­son­al view against posthu­mous na­tion­al awards, say­ing peo­ple should be recog­nised while they are alive and able to re­ceive the ho­n­our them­selves.

He said there should in­stead be an­oth­er mech­a­nism to recog­nise sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions af­ter a per­son’s death.

How na­tion­al awards are giv­en

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, the process be­gins with nom­i­na­tions. Any per­son or or­gan­i­sa­tion may nom­i­nate a cit­i­zen for a Na­tion­al Award.

The nom­i­na­tions are con­sid­ered by the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, which is head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice. The com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gates nom­i­nees and con­sid­ers the nom­i­na­tions be­fore com­pil­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter.

The Prime Min­is­ter con­sid­ers the com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tions and ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent on the nom­i­nees se­lect­ed to re­ceive Na­tion­al Awards.

The Pres­i­dent then for­mal­ly con­fers the awards. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent says the Pres­i­dent’s role is to act on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

There are five cat­e­gories of Na­tion­al Awards.

The Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) is the coun­try’s high­est na­tion­al award. It is con­ferred in Gold for dis­tin­guished and out­stand­ing ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go, with no more than five awards made in any one year.

The Cha­co­nia Medal recog­nis­es long and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice that pro­motes na­tion­al wel­fare or strength­ens com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. It is award­ed in Gold, Sil­ver or Bronze, with a max­i­mum of ten awards an­nu­al­ly.

The Hum­ming­bird Medal recog­nis­es loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice ben­e­fi­cial to Trinidad and To­ba­go in any field of hu­man en­deav­our, as well as gal­lantry or oth­er hu­mane ac­tion.

The Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it recog­nis­es out­stand­ing and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice in the Pub­lic Ser­vices, De­fence and Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices or statu­to­ry bod­ies per­form­ing na­tion­al func­tions. On­ly cit­i­zens are el­i­gi­ble for this award.

The Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women recog­nis­es out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of women.