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The for­mer chair of the State En­ter­pris­es Re­view Com­mit­tee (SERC) is call­ing for the de­politi­ci­sa­tion of state board ap­point­ments.

The call from Dr Ter­rence Far­rell comes af­ter a court rul­ing that crit­i­cised the ten­den­cy of State boards to act as mere “rub­ber stamps” for min­is­te­r­i­al di­rec­tives.

On Wednes­day, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim stressed that State board mem­bers are not ap­point­ed to sim­ply en­dorse gov­ern­ment poli­cies. In­stead, he said they are legal­ly ob­lig­at­ed to ex­er­cise in­de­pen­dent judge­ment, over­sight, and due dili­gence in line with sound cor­po­rate gov­er­nance stan­dards