The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union has called on T&TEC’s general manager Kelvin Ramsook to apologise to workers at the Cove Power Station for accusing them of sabotaging the power plant and intimidating them with the police last month.
At a media conference at the Union’s Paramount Building headquarters in San Fernando yesterday, OWTU first vice president Peter Burke also called on the T&TEC board to reign in Ramsook for his treatment of the workers, whom he described as loyal to the people of Tobago.
It was these same workers, some of whom, were kept back for questioning by police, Burke said.
On September 27, Tobagonians were hit with an island-wide power outage, bringing most activities to a halt. He explained that a sensor used to detect smoke and hot gases at the plant tripped, shutting off gas to the generator. He said for several years the sensor had been bypassed and was reinstalled recently.
“What happened is that the plant shut down and there is evidence that there are leaks of hot gases inside the plant, hence the reason why the management took off that alarm which would attack the plant.”
He continued: “The general manager himself visited the plant with police, making unfounded charges that there was sabotage on the plant. Now, this sort of unhinged behaviour is not singular to that incident and we had called on the board on more than one occasion to reign him in. If every time we have a blackout that you assume before an investigation that it is sabotage, then you are going to have workers operating too cautiously. We have workers who have identified these problems directly or indirectly. There is a campaign to discredit them and in some circles, to take action against these workers.”
Burke said the power plant was the most important industrial complex in Tobago and is T&TEC’s most expensive single asset. Although T&TEC has two submarine cables for the supply of power from Trinidad, he said they were not capable of providing a quarter of the island’s needs, therefore it cannot be used as an auxiliary supply. He said the power plant has the capability of supply 64 MW of power, but over the years T&TEC has not ensured that it was properly maintained in terms of timely overhauls of the machinery.
“These machines are sensitive as jet engines. We must have preventative maintenance, not breakdown maintenance and in every case, these four machines exceeded its recommended time for more than 100 per cent. So if the time for a major overhaul is 24,000 hours, all of them exceeded that by 100 per cent,” Burke said.
He said there are other problems which include the radiators, exhaust system and electrical and electronic fixtures.
But in an immediate response yesterday Ramsook told Guardian Media that the investigation into the power outage continues and a seven-member committee is expected to present its findings today.
He said while there are preliminary indicators of what caused the outage, he preferred to wait until he had all the facts to reveal them. Responding to the alleged police intimidation, Ramsook said he has no control over the Police Service, therefore he would not be able to respond. With regard to disciplinary action, he said the commission had procedures, which would only be used if there was a need to do so.
