Asha Javeed

As far as the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is con­cerned, the board of state-owned Caribbean Air­lines can con­tin­ue to"ra­ma­jay," That was Warn­er's dis­mis­sive com­ment to the CAL's board state­ment de­fend­ing its ac­tions yes­ter­day. Ra­ma­jay means to op­er­ate freestyle. For the mo­ment, Warn­er said he pref­fered to say noth­ing more about the board, not­ing that "all will be re­vealed in time." Last Fri­day, Warn­er had called on the board to do the "eth­i­cal" thing and re­sign fol­low­ing a three-week im­passe aris­ing from the dis­missal of its chief ex­ec­u­tive, Cap­tain Ian Brun­ton.

Warn­er said he was not con­sult­ed on the col­lec­tive board de­ci­sion to fire Brun­ton. But no res­ig­na­tions have been forth­com­ing from the George Nic ho­las-chaired board. In­stead, it is­sued a three-page state­ment on Sun­day de­fend­ing its ac­tions, claim­ing "its at­tempts at good gov­er­nance have been mis­con­strued." In light of that, Warn­er said he did not be­lieve the board would be re­moved from un­der his min­istry. But it didn't stop him from throw­ing out this ques­tion to Nicholas: Whether the lawyer re­tained by the CAL board was qual­i­fied to prac­tice in T&T?

The CAL board had re­tained British QC, An­drew Mitchell and at­tor­ney Om Lal­la on the le­gal con­se­quences aris­ing out of Brun­ton's dis­missal. Lal­la, cit­ing eth­i­cal prin­ci­pals, has with­drawn. Mitchell has rep­re­sent­ed Nicholas in the con­tro­ver­sial le­gal bat­tle against Dr Kr­ish­na Per­sad for con­trol of Mo­ra Ven Hold­ings Ltd. Per­sad was be­fore the court on six fraud charges brought against him by Nicholas. Warn­er spoke with the me­dia yes­ter­day be­fore he un­veiled a new traf­fic plan for the En­deav­our fly­over, Ch­agua­nas. Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer works min­is­ter Colm Im­bert have agreed that CAL's board should not op­er­ate with­out con­sul­ta­tion with its line min­is­ter.

with re­port­ing by SHAS­TRI BOODAN