For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day has asked At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to with­draw the ap­peal of the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment against the de­ci­sion of Jus­tice Lennox Deyals­ingh in favour of for­mer em­ploy­ees of Ca­roni (1975) Ltd. In a No­vem­ber 30 let­ter writ­ten un­der the head­ing of the new­ly-es­tab­lished Bas­deo Pan­day Foun­da­tion, the vet­er­an politi­cian re­ferred to a High Court mat­ter be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Rights As­so­ci­a­tion and Patrick Man­ning, then min­is­ter of fi­nance and Cor­po­ra­tion Sole.

Pan­day wrote: "In the said ac­tion the sug­ar work­ers claimed that the Gov­ern­ment had re­neged on, and/or failed to ho­n­our cer­tain promis­es, as­sur­ances and un­der­tak­ings giv­en to them as an in­duce­ment for their ac­cep­tance of vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion of em­ploy­ment (VSEP) im­posed on them in 2003. "Some of the un­der­tak­ings giv­en in­clud­ed:

�2 The promise that they would be giv­en pri­or­i­ty in ac­cess­ing lands be­long­ing to Ca­roni (1975) Ltd for agri­cul­tur­al and res­i­den­tial use.

�2 That they they would be grant­ed leas­es with­in a rea­son­able time of the ac­cep­tance of such sep­a­ra­tion of em­ploy­ment with Ca­roni (1975) Ltd."

Pan­day said the Gov­ern­ment re­neged on the promis­es and when the mat­ter went to court, Jus­tice Deyals­ingh ruled in favour of the work­ers. He or­dered that they be grant­ed their leas­es on or be­fore June 30, 2006. Pan­day said in an at­tempt "to frus­trate the rights of the work­ers," the PNM gov­ern­ment ap­pealed the de­ci­sion. That ap­peal is still pend­ing. He told the AG: "The foun­da­tion, on be­half of the said work­ers, now calls up­on you and the PP Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw the said ap­peal so that the work­ers could en­force the judg­ment in their favour."