College officials are officially mute on a call by the Opposition United Bermuda Party for a probe into its human resources practices.

?The College notes that the call is made exclusively by a politician in the opposition, and thus it becomes a political issue. It will have to be addressed at that level,? College spokesperson Evelyn James Barnett said via email yesterday.

UBP shadow minister Neville Darrell is urging an independent probe into human resources practices at the College citing a series of human related stories recently covered by the media.

One unresolved case involves the matter of Abdallah Ahad whose academic qualifications were revealed to be questionable by the Bermuda Sun.

Mr. Ahad ? or Dr. Ahad ? continues to work for the Department of Education while the Public Service Commission investigates his credentials.

His former employer, the Bermuda College, could not specify what steps had been taken to verify his credentials before a decision was taken to hire him.

The Human Resources department was not involved in that decision, it said, in response to a series of questions on the hiring of Mr. (or Dr.) Ahad.

?Abdallah Ahad was hired by Dr. Charles Finn who was then Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Technology,? the College stated.

?In a higher education setting, teachers are hired by academic officers with assistance from HR in the process side. HR cannot possibly be in a position to judge the qualifications of biologists, accountants, historians, etc., so academic administrators are primarily responsible for academic hires. Dr. Finn no longer works at the College.?

Asked what were the circumstances of his leaving the College, Mrs. James-Barnett said ?Mr. Ahad chose to take a position with the Ministry of Education instead of the College.?

Nor was the HR department involved in the negotiations with Michael Bradshaw who this week became the latest member of the College?s redundancy club .

?Had Dr. Bradshaw wished to approach HR, he could have done so,? Mrs. James-Barnett said.

The College had no response when asked who constituted the HR department and what their qualifications were.

Nor did they respond to complaints reaching our offices that the department?s current director, Lorita Tucker was not qualified for the position.

Bermuda Public Services Union president Ed Ball, who has had extensive experience in negotiations with the College, said that as far as he is concerned the department needed ?beefing up?.

?I would say that certainly we need to beef up HR,? said Mr. Ball.

?Whatever it takes to bring the HR department on board as a viable department. ?

Some College staffers are, however, concerned at what they say is a bloated department staffed with unqualified people and receiving an inordinate amount of the College?s scarce resources in an era of budget cuts.

They argue that, with four full-time staffers, the department is too large for an institution with about 130 employees.

The Southampton Princess, with more than 800 employees gets by with an HR department of eight staff members.

And, the College?s critics say, thousands of dollars were spent in renovation and refurbishing offices for the department following hurricane Fabian ? a project which swallowed up four classrooms.

Asked what he found to be common elements in the negotiations with the College, Mr. Ball said: ?The common thread is that you?ve got to eliminate the layers of communication. People have to honest, truthful and fair and HR has to play a bigger role.?

He added: ?No one can get everything that they want in life. Some days you win and sometimes you lose and that applies to union and management as well. But you at least want to know that there is someone who wants to do the best for the employee and will do it fairly ? you can only ask for someone to be fair. It shouldn?t be done with malice, hatred or intimidation because everyone at the end of the day has still got to work together as a team.?