Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Pre­ma­tee Ram­nar­ine, moth­er of for­mer Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SSA) head Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine, has been promised a pro­mo­tion to the post of Clerk IV at the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Namde­v­co)-a po­si­tion that does not ex­ist in the es­tab­lish­ment.

Ram­nar­ine, who has more than 25 years' ser­vice, ap­proached the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC) last year, claim­ing she had been by­passed for a pro­mo­tion. In a bid to bring a speedy res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter, for­mer chair­man Robert Ram­samooj agreed to en­ter in­to a vol­un­tary con­cil­i­a­tion me­di­a­tion agree­ment be­tween Namde­v­co and Ram­nar­ine.

T&T Guardian learned it was agreed that Ram­nar­ine, who held the sub­stan­tive post of Clerk I, would be pro­mot­ed to the po­si­tion of Clerk III?ef­fec­tive May 3, 1994, and to Clerk IV ef­fec­tive March 1, 2007. How­ev­er, a year af­ter she went to the EOC, the agreed pro­mo­tion can­not go in­to ef­fect be­cause the po­si­tion of Clerk III is cur­rent­ly filled and the po­si­tion of Clerk IV does not ex­ist.

In the in­ter­im, in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed, man­age­ment took a de­ci­sion to al­low Ram­nar­ine to act as as­sis­tant man­ag­er at the Nor­ris De­onar­ine North­ern Whole­sale Mar­ket in Ma­coya un­til the mat­ter is set­tled. How­ev­er, Ram­nar­ine is in­sist­ing that an agree­ment was en­tered up­on to pro­mote her to Clerk IV.

Ac­cord­ing to the Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue and Ex­pen­di­ture there is no po­si­tion of Clerk IV with­in Namde­v­co. Ques­tioned yes­ter­day on the ba­sis for en­ter­ing in­to such an agree­ment when such a post does not ex­ist, Ram­samooj claimed the agree­ment to set­tle the mat­ter be­tween Namde­v­co and Ram­nar­ine was based on ad­vice from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) Anand Ram­lo­gan.

"I will ad­mit the mat­ter has not been set­tled...It is a com­plex mat­ter," Ram­samooj said. "It went to the board and the board de­cid­ed to seek the opin­ion of the AG in the mat­ter. The AG sent an opin­ion. The board de­cid­ed to adopt the rec­om­men­da­tion of the AG.

"In sum­ma­ry, it stat­ed we should set­tle the mat­ter. Hav­ing re­ceived the ad­vice from the AG we are now im­ple­ment­ing the ad­vice. I am not an ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, it is on­ly so much I can do." Asked whether Ram­lo­gan was in­formed that the po­si­tion of Clerk IV does not ex­ist in the es­tab­lish­ment, Ram­samooj replied, "Yes, he knew the po­si­tion does not ex­ist. We sub­mit­ted all the fac­tors.

"It is over one year but we could not act on a de­ci­sion be­cause of the com­plex­i­ty. We had to seek ad­vice. We sought ad­vice from a con­sul­tant and the AG. "Things are now be­ing put in place to set­tle to try and set­tle the mat­ter," Ram­samooj said. When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Ram­lo­gan yes­ter­day, in­quir­ing whether he was aware the mat­ter had not been set­tled de­spite his ad­vice, he replied, "I have no com­ment to make on that mat­ter."

Promised po­si­tion does not ex­ist at Namde­v­co

Sources at Namde­v­co told the T&T Guardian the hu­man re­sources de­part­ment has tak­en a hands-off ap­proach, while some of the for­mer board mem­bers are al­so dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the mat­ter. The agree­ment be­tween Namde­v­co and Ram­nar­ine has trig­gered out­rage in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, with five oth­er em­ploy­ees now clam­our­ing to be treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly.

The em­ploy­ees, sources said, are al­so mak­ing plans to ap­proach the EOC. "When the prop­er pro­ce­dures are not fol­lowed, this is the end re­sult," a top Namde­v­co of­fi­cial told T&T Guardian. A back­lash, Namde­v­co in­dus­tri­al-re­la­tions con­sul­tant Karan Ma­habirs­ingh said, must be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when such agree­ments are be­ing en­tered in­to.

"One must con­sid­er in mak­ing a de­ci­sion, mer­it­ed or oth­er­wise, the im­pli­ca­tions of any such de­ci­sion. My ad­vice was not against the par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual but look­ing at how the move can im­pact oth­er peo­ple," Ma­habirs­ingh told the T&T Guardian in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Ma­habirs­ingh said his role was to en­sure that a so­lu­tion was reached that was ac­cept­able to both par­ties. "One of the con­sid­er­a­tions was the po­si­tion that was promised did not ex­ist in the es­tab­lish­ment. My ad­vice was, you can­not ap­point to a non-ex­is­tent po­si­tion. The po­si­tion of a Clerk IV does not ex­ist.

"I sug­gest­ed that Namde­v­co seek some po­si­tion that may sat­is­fy her needs and at the same time not put the cor­po­ra­tion in a com­pro­mis­ing po­si­tion. "I dis­cov­ered in my con­ver­sa­tion with Namde­v­co of­fi­cials that the ad­vice of the AG was al­so be­ing sought. I said we should await the ad­vice of the AG de­spite my own views on the mat­ter."

How­ev­er, Ma­habirs­ingh said, if Namde­v­co is of the view that ow­ing to an over­sight Ram­nar­ine should be com­pen­sat­ed, it is en­ti­tled to ex­plore oth­er op­tions. "It is not be­yond their ca­pac­i­ty to cre­ate a po­si­tion in or­der to sat­is­fy that re­quire­ment. Of course there is the ne­ces­si­ty for ap­provals to be done," he said.

Namde­v­co gets Oc­to­ber 12 dead­line or else...

Since the agree­ment, Ram­samooj and Ram­nar­ine's rep­re­sen­ta­tive, CEO and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Zatopek So­lu­tions Inc Ger­ard Pinard, have been in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion over the mat­ter. Pinard, in an e-mail sent to Ram­samooj on Oc­to­ber 8, ex­pressed his dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

He wrote, "Since your last e-mail com­mu­ni­ca­tion to me on June 15, 2012, my client and I have been wait­ing pa­tient­ly for the re­sults of the promised 'high pri­or­i­ty' that you have as­sured us that you were giv­ing to this long out­stand­ing mat­ter.

"To say that we are ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed at the ap­par­ent in­tran­si­gence of your firm in im­ple­ment­ing the terms of the Vol­un­tary Con­cil­i­a­tion/Me­di­a­tion Agree­ment be­tween Namde­v­co and Mrs Ram­nar­ine, which was en­tered in­to un­der the aus­pices of the EOC more than one year ago, would be a gross un­der­state­ment.

"I would ap­pre­ci­ate your sat­is­fac­to­ry set­tle­ment of this long out­stand­ing is­sue on or be­fore Fri­day Oc­to­ber 12, 2012, fail­ing which my in­struc­tions are to for­mal­ly re­port your firm's non-com­pli­ance to the EOC for their ac­tion as ap­pro­pri­ate. "I have ad­vised my client that she has grounds al­so to pur­sue the mat­ter in the form of a trade dis­pute un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act Ch. 88:01 should she choose so to do."

In an im­me­di­ate e-mail re­sponse to Pinard, Ram­samooj apol­o­gised for the de­lay. "I am more than sur­prised to now learn that this mat­ter has not come to a fi­nal­i­ty," he went on. "I am shocked that this mat­ter is still out­stand­ing af­ter all the per­son­al ef­forts of the chair­man and the AG's of­fice to have the mat­ter set­tled. I even pi­lot­ed a mo­tion at the board lev­el to have the mat­ter set­tled."

When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Pinard yes­ter­day, he con­firmed he was rep­re­sent­ing Ram­nar­ine, but said he could not com­ment at this stage. Ram­nar­ine: Do not ask me my busi­ness Ram­nar­ine, when con­tact­ed, told the T&T Guardian she was not pre­pared to dis­cuss her per­son­al busi­ness.

Asked how she felt about Namde­v­co's fail­ure to pro­mote her de­spite the agree­ment, she replied, "Lis­ten to me. Tell me who gave you the in­for­ma­tion. Who gave you the in­for­ma­tion, ask them the ques­tions. "My per­son­al and of­fi­cial busi­ness does not con­cern the T&T Guardian. Who­ev­er is giv­ing you the in­for­ma­tion...them. Let them an­swer your ques­tions."