Yvonne Ba­boolal

Up to late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) chair­man Dan­ny Solomon was still in the dark about whether he will be re­tained or be re­lieved of his du­ties with the rest of the board of di­rec­tors. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie said on Tues­day he would rec­om­mend to Cab­i­net the CDA board should be changed.

His an­nounce­ment came af­ter news broke that the CDA had asked Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) for the tele­phone records of a T&T Guardian jour­nal­ist to find out who in the au­thor­i­ty had leaked in­for­ma­tion to her for a sto­ry. Asked yes­ter­day if the min­is­ter had con­tact­ed the CDA about plans to re­move the board and if he would be kept on as chair­man, Solomon said:

"The au­thor­i­ty is still await­ing in­struc­tions on the way for­ward re­gard­ing the board." Asked how the CDA felt about the min­is­ter's de­ci­sion, he said: "We will abide by what­ev­er de­ci­sion is made." As to whether the CDA had found out who in the or­gan­i­sa­tion had giv­en in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia, Solomon gave an­oth­er brief an­swer: "In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing."

Tewarie, asked if Solomon or any­one else from the board would be re­tained, said he had sent a note to Cab­i­net and was await­ing its de­ci­sion. "Cab­i­net will de­cide who goes and who stays," he added. TSTT chair­man?Ever­ald Snag­gs could not be reached yes­ter­day to find out how in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the leak of the re­porter's tele­phone records were pro­ceed­ing.

The T&T?Guardian was told Snag­gs was in a meet­ing and would re­spond when it was over. But up to press time, he did not re­turn the call. Snag­gs is al­so head of se­cu­ri­ty at the CDA. TSTT's union, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU), is plan­ning to pick­et Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Nizam Baksh's St Clair, Port-of-Spain, of­fice to­mor­row?to protest any in­tend­ed witch­hunt of any staff mem­ber.

The CWU said it would not sup­port any witch­hunt to find a scape­goat while the leak of the tele­phone records may have had the au­tho­ri­sa­tion of po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees at the CDA. The CDA's board split af­ter the tele­phone records sto­ry was pub­lished, with sev­en of the nine mem­bers is­su­ing a dis­claimer dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the mat­ter. Solomon and Christo­pher Street were left on the oth­er side.

The dis­grun­tled fac­tion is claim­ing that statu­to­ry meet­ings are no longer held and key de­ci­sions are made with­out con­sult­ing them. It claimed staff mem­bers' ser­vices were be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed or they were post­ed else­where.

Giv­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for the rum­blings with­in the CDA, Solomon said the au­thor­i­ty had been re­brand­ed and repo­si­tioned as a prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment fa­cil­i­ta­tor. Fur­ther, there have been hu­man re­source changes and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters had been set­tled, he said.

He added: "At the present time there is a marked cli­mate of change at the CDA as the or­gan­i­sa­tion moves for­ward in get­ting things right to fa­cil­i­tate the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ob­jec­tives. "Be­ing aware of this, the CDA has put in place an em­ploy­ee as­sis­tance pro­gramme in or­der to as­sist its em­ploy­ees in adapt­ing to and man­ag­ing the changes tak­ing place at the or­gan­i­sa­tion."