The ex­pla­na­tion giv­en af­ter such a long pe­ri­od by the CAL board as to why it fired Capt Ian Brun­ton as CEO is se­vere­ly lack­ing in sub­stance and mer­it. The board has not in­di­cat­ed any fail­ures on the part of Brun­ton to war­rant such a high-hand­ed mea­sure. If the board want­ed the CEO re­placed it could have done so in a much more diplo­mat­ic man­ner. It has caused un­nec­es­sary em­bar­rass­ment to CAL, Brun­ton and the Gov­ern­ment. Noth­ing is wrong with re­plac­ing a CEO, but sure­ly it should not be done in such a man­ner as to cre­ate a pub­lic re­la­tions fi­as­co, as well as ap­pear­ing to be mo­ti­vat­ed by rea­sons of vengeance. Could a deal not have been ne­go­ti­at­ed in pri­vate if the board re­al­ly want­ed Brun­ton re­placed? Why was the min­is­ter not ad­vised about the de­ci­sion be­fore­hand?

This is not good gov­er­nance. State en­ter­prise board mem­bers must re­mem­ber these are not their own pri­vate en­ter­pris­es. They are ac­count­able for all of their ac­tions. The term that best de­scribes the CAL board's ap­proach is "rum shop gov­er­nance." All state en­ter­prise chair­men should take note. Please don't politi­cise the in­sti­tu­tions. The PP Gov­ern­ment was vot­ed in­to pow­er be­cause the coali­tion cam­paigned on the promise that these things will not hap­pen. It promised mean­ing­ful change. I would rec­om­mend that for such a blun­der the board should be re­placed im­me­di­ate­ly and if not the en­tire board, at least the chair­man.

I would how­ev­er pre­fer to see the en­tire board re­placed, be­cause all its mem­bers ap­pear to have agreed to the fir­ing with­out ask­ing the rel­e­vant ques­tions of the chair­man as it re­lat­ed to Brun­ton. If the chair­man is not in agree­ment with the line min­is­ter, then the chair­man should do the de­cent thing and re­sign. Why would a chair­man want to hold on to such a job? Is pow­er and con­trol such a big thing for him? Does he un­der­stand the con­cept of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty? Frankly, af­ter six months the qual­i­ty of many state en­ter­prise boards ap­point­ed so far leaves a lot to be de­sired. PP Gov­ern­ment, I am very dis­ap­point­ed.

K Ma­haraj

Via e-mail