Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has been or­dered to pay more than $20.2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful dis­missal claims brought against the State and state agen­cies be­tween Jan­u­ary 2019 and Oc­to­ber 2023.

That works out to tax­pay­ers pay­ing more than $11,500 a day in to­tal com­pen­sa­tion dur­ing the four-year pe­ri­od.

In the case of the dis­missals un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, $10.5 mil­lion was award­ed to two sep­a­rate sets of claimants. Con­verse­ly, more than $9.7 mil­lion was award­ed for sev­en dis­missals un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to le­gal sources, there are close to 20 oth­er in­di­vid­u­als who set­tled with the State for wrong­ful dis­missals at the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) un­der the present gov­ern­ment but those set­tle­ments were sub­ject to non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments as the sums paid were sig­nif­i­cant as the dis­missed em­ploy­ees were se­nior staff.

In many of the cas­es, the vic­tims made claims of po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion, with at least six of the dis­missals com­ing short­ly af­ter there was a change in gov­ern­ment.

In six of the cas­es, there were claims of mis­con­duct made by the board of state agen­cies or gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, while the rea­sons pro­vid­ed for the oth­er dis­missals ranged from unau­tho­rised/in­valid con­tracts to lack of con­fi­dence and in­suf­fi­cient aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

A de­fen­dant in one of the cas­es who with­held their iden­ti­ty told the Sun­day Guardian, “I be­lieve my case set a bad prece­dent for oth­ers where nat­ur­al jus­tice can be breached. Mean­ing, the em­ploy­er fired, you go be­fore the courts, and the judge lit­i­gates and de­cides to cor­rect the com­pa­ny’s wrong­do­ing by pay­ing one month’s no­tice on the con­tract–where both par­ties can ter­mi­nate.”

The dis­missals

1. Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT)–Last Wednes­day, the High Court ruled that the for­mer act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­pa­ny Leon Grant was un­law­ful­ly dis­missed in May 2018 by the PATT board ap­point­ed by the present Gov­ern­ment and award­ed him $0.4 mil­lion. Jus­tice Ricky Rahim ruled that he was en­ti­tled to his salary pay­ments un­til the date of his re­tire­ment, which was sup­posed to be at the be­gin­ning of Jan­u­ary 2020.

PATT fired him claim­ing a lack of trust and con­fi­dence in him. On Au­gust 15, 2017, Grant was sus­pend­ed by the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pro­cure­ment of the MV Cabo Star ves­sel. Days lat­er, PATT con­tact­ed Grant, in­form­ing him that he had to ap­pear be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC).  

Af­ter Grant pre­pared his state­ments, there were in­ter­nal al­le­ga­tions that he re­ceived emails from the own­er of the Cabo Star, Ba­ja Fer­ries Lim­it­ed, be­fore the PATT en­tered in­to a char­ter agree­ment with the ves­sel’s bro­ker Bridge­man Ser­vices LP.

 Grant said he wrote to the PATT re­quest­ing ac­cess to his com­pa­ny email as his cell phone and com­put­er were seized. Grant wrote to the JSC, in­di­cat­ing that while the emails were sent to him, he was not aware of re­ceiv­ing them. He was ter­mi­nat­ed on May 24, 2018, due to his al­leged non-dis­clo­sure of the emails.

In his rul­ing, Jus­tice Rahim point­ed out that there was no foun­da­tion for the al­leged loss of con­fi­dence. “This is a mat­ter of pure spec­u­la­tion in the ab­sence of proof to the con­trary, as it may be equal­ly rea­son­able that an own­er may of­fer the same terms of the bro­ker, there­by prof­it­ing from the fee (if any as there is al­so no such ev­i­dence) that would or­di­nar­i­ly be paid to the bro­ker.

“The court con­sid­ers that hav­ing re­gard to its find­ings there was no rep­re­hen­si­ble con­duct on the part of the de­fen­dant to the dis­ad­van­tage of the claimant, that its ac­tions were not out­ra­geous, high-hand­ed or egre­gious but were, in fact, mis­guid­ed and not prop­er­ly con­sid­ered,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

2. Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC)–In June 2023, a court award­ed the for­mer chief con­struc­tion en­gi­neer at the HDC Aaron Chadee $114,000 for wrong­ful dis­missal in March 2016. Chadee was one of sev­en se­nior HDC man­agers, in­clud­ing for­mer man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jear­lean John, sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing an au­dit in De­cem­ber 2015, short­ly af­ter the PNM came in­to gov­ern­ment. All of them were even­tu­al­ly fired.

Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams ruled that the HDC’s con­duct was “planned and de­lib­er­ate”, adding that there were “ef­forts to con­ceal the be­hav­iour.”

“The de­fen­dant dis­re­gard­ed that the process they adopt­ed en­ti­tled the claimant to an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard and to nat­ur­al jus­tice,” Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams said.

3. De­posit In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion (DIC)–In March 2023, the for­mer gen­er­al man­ag­er of DIC Ar­joon Har­ri­paul was award­ed com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful dis­missal fol­low­ing his sack­ing in 2017. Two weeks be­fore the $3.56 mil­lion law­suit went to tri­al, he was of­fered a $2 mil­lion non-dis­clo­sure set­tle­ment. It’s un­clear how much the fi­nal com­pen­sa­tion agreed with the State was. The DIC is a sub­sidiary of the Cen­tral Bank.

4. Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT)–In Jan­u­ary 2023, a court grant­ed the for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go provost Dr Fazal Ali $1.3 mil­lion in dam­ages af­ter he was fired by UTT’s state-ap­point­ed Board in 2015. Ali was giv­en a three-year con­tract ex­ten­sion in May 2015 but was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave to fa­cil­i­tate an au­dit. He was lat­er fired af­ter the Board said there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence that he mis­con­duct­ed him­self by mis­man­ag­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic busi­ness of the uni­ver­si­ty. He joined the uni­ver­si­ty, in a dif­fer­ent role, in 2002. Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad in his rul­ing said he be­lieved there was a ‘pel­lu­cid mis­sion’ to get rid of Ali. He ac­cused the UTT Board of mar­gin­al­is­ing Ali, ex­clud­ing him from meet­ings and then wrong­ful­ly dis­miss­ing him.

“The in­sti­tu­tion of the charges, his ex­clu­sion from meet­ings and his sub­se­quent dis­missal, all oc­curred af­ter the new board was in­stalled fol­low­ing the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“In a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety which cher­ish­es con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, in­clud­ing the right of equal­i­ty of treat­ment, it is ex­pect­ed that in the dis­charge of its oblig­a­tions, a board, es­pe­cial­ly one which over­sees a state-fund­ed com­pa­ny, would act with­out bias and fo­cus up­on the af­fect­ing of sound and mea­sured de­ci­sions which ap­plaud per­for­mance and abil­i­ty which ad­vances the man­date of the en­ti­ty,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

 5.  Cen­tral Bank of T&T (CBTT)–In Oc­to­ber 2022, for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran was award­ed $5.47 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for his wrong­ful dis­missal in De­cem­ber 2015. Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s ad­vice to ter­mi­nate Ram­bar­ran was ‘se­ri­ous­ly flawed’. Ram­bar­ran was ap­point­ed Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor in Ju­ly 2012. He had a con­tract un­til Ju­ly 2017. “This court, how­ev­er, has a deep con­cern when it comes to an en­ti­ty such as the CBTT, no less, which holds such a promi­nent po­si­tion in the frame­work of the Re­pub­lic of T&T fail­ing to as­sist the court in a mat­ter in which they have all of the in­for­ma­tion.

“The le­gal au­thor­i­ties which call on the State to lay all its cards on the ta­ble are a recog­ni­tion of the po­si­tion that the de­fen­dant holds in the le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That po­si­tion is to pre­serve the Con­sti­tu­tion and to ex­plain, where ap­plic­a­ble, the rea­sons and ra­tio­nale for any breach­es there­of to show the same to be rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able in a so­ci­ety that has a prop­er re­spect for the rights and free­doms of the in­di­vid­ual,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

Ram­bar­ran’s fir­ing from the CBTT was pro­lif­ic as it was the first time a gov­er­nor was fired. Be­fore his dis­missal, Ram­bar­ran had re­vealed a list of the com­pa­nies that re­ceived the high­est al­lo­ca­tion of Unit­ed States Dol­lars from the Cen­tral Bank. Massy threat­ened to take le­gal ac­tion, cit­ing a breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. That and oth­er ac­tions re­sult­ed in Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley claim­ing Ram­bar­ran’s ac­tions were reck­less and il­le­gal.  Im­bert had ear­li­er crit­i­cised Ram­bar­ran for say­ing that T&T was in a re­ces­sion with­out con­sult­ing with him. Ram­bar­ran was fired one day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said that a gov­ern­ment “ought to have con­fi­dence” in a cen­tral bank gov­er­nor.  The state has ap­pealed the rul­ing and the mat­ter is be­fore the Court of Ap­peal. Ram­bar­ran de­clined to com­ment as his mat­ter is on ap­peal.

6. Se­cret In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA)–In Au­gust 2020, the sin­gle largest pay­out for wrong­ful dis­missal since 2015–$10 mil­lion–was award­ed to 20 for­mer SIA em­ploy­ees who were wrong­ful­ly dis­missed un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment. The judge ruled that their dis­missal was ‘patent­ly egre­gious’. For­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ac­cused the SIA of spy­ing on her and oth­er pub­lic fig­ures while the agency was op­er­a­tional. It was re­port­ed in the me­dia that a re­port com­piled by a for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Su­per­in­ten­dent that the 20 em­ploy­ees were part of a list of men who were al­leged­ly spy­ing on the UNC and were PNM sup­port­ers. In its rul­ing, the In­dus­tri­al Court said the em­ploy­ees were dis­missed in an op­pres­sive man­ner con­trary to ba­sic prin­ci­ples of good in­dus­tri­al prac­tice.

“In­struc­tive­ly, the at­tor­ney for the min­istry, Mr Ali failed to ap­pear on the 16th of Jan­u­ary 2019, which was the last date of the hear­ing.

“Nei­ther the min­istry, nor Mr Ali, com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the court to ex­plain the rea­sons for their ab­sence, and the non-com­pli­ance with the court’s or­ders,” the de­ci­sion said.

7. Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB)–In March 2020, the NL­CB was or­dered to pay more than $0.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to for­mer em­ploy­ees Garth McLean and April Pe­ters. McLean and Pe­ters were fired in Oc­to­ber 2016. The court found that they signed valid two-year con­tracts in 2015. Judge Har­ris ruled that “the de­fen­dant had ex­hib­it­ed bad faith and im­prop­er mo­tives for the dis­missal.”

8. Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA)–One of the six wrong­ful dis­missals un­der the PNM, the dis­missal of for­mer SSA di­rec­tor Bis­nath Ma­haraj was set­tled with a non-dis­clo­sure clause, mean­ing that the com­pen­sa­tion paid out is un­known. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to le­gal sources, it was a sig­nif­i­cant sum. In De­cem­ber 2019, the San Fer­nan­do High Court ruled that Ma­haraj’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law was vi­o­lat­ed as he was not told of the rea­sons for his No­vem­ber 2015 dis­missal and he was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard be­fore it was ef­fect­ed.

“The act does not pro­vide that the di­rec­tor could be dis­missed at any time with or with­out just cause and with­out any op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard,” Jus­tice Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well had said.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon fired 35 SSA em­ploy­ees in Au­gust 2015, short­ly af­ter the PNM came in­to gov­ern­ment. The Gov­ern­ment said it was part of a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus. For­mer deputy di­rec­tor Kieron Gan­pat, as well as for­mer se­nior em­ploy­ees Carl­ton Den­nie and Alon­zo Flem­ing, were among those who set­tled.

9. Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion–In an­oth­er rul­ing based on a dis­missal un­der the PP gov­ern­ment, in May 2019, the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion agreed to pay for­mer man­ag­er Ish­war Jadoo­nanan more than $0.5 mil­lion af­ter he was fired in 2013. The gov­ern­ment-ap­point­ed board ac­cused him of fail­ing to have the req­ui­site re­quire­ments for the po­si­tion to which he had ap­plied.

The law

Ac­cord­ing to law, an em­ploy­er can ter­mi­nate an em­ploy­ee’s con­tract at any time for any le­git­i­mate rea­son. How­ev­er, they are re­quired to give the em­ploy­ee rea­son­able no­tice or com­pen­sa­tion in the ab­sence of rea­son­able no­tice. The em­ploy­ee must be giv­en min­i­mum no­tice equal to the pay pe­ri­od, mean­ing a week­ly-paid work­er must be giv­en one to two weeks' no­tice.

In com­par­i­son, a month­ly-paid work­er must re­ceive three to four weeks' no­tice - de­pend­ing on their length of ser­vice. Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 10(5) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act 1972, wrong­ful dis­missal is a breach of law or con­tract re­gard­ing the stip­u­la­tions stat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly–mean­ing it is wrong­ful if the ter­mi­na­tion was car­ried out the wrong way. That can be through too short no­tice, if it was con­trary to em­ploy­ment terms, or when an em­ploy­ee is dis­missed in cir­cum­stances that are op­pres­sive or harsh, or not in line with the prin­ci­ples of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice.

AG promis­es to re­spond

But why is the State los­ing these le­gal mat­ters? And are the state’s le­gal ar­gu­ments ef­fec­tive enough to pro­tect their de­ci­sions and tax­pay­ers' mon­ey?

To an­swer these ques­tions, the Sun­day Guardian turned to pub­lic of­fi­cials but was un­able to source an ex­pla­na­tion by the time of pub­li­ca­tion.

Dr Row­ley did not re­spond to mes­sages sent to him. Leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said she did not have the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion at hand to of­fer a com­ment/re­sponse.

Mean­while, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour com­mit­ted to re­spond­ing by to­mor­row.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ar­mour said he need­ed time to put out the in­quiries on the mat­ter.

“I can­not use­ful­ly com­ment be­fore I re­ceive the re­sults of those in­quiries,” he added.

Sev­er­al dis­missed em­ploy­ees have yet been un­able to source em­ploy­ment as they suf­fered rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age in the pub­lic space dur­ing their dis­missal.