Three for­mer high-rank­ing of­fi­cials from State-owned oil and gas com­pa­ny Petrotrin named in a news­pa­per re­port about unau­tho­rised salary in­creas­es say the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against them have left them trau­ma­tised.

For­mer Petrotrin pres­i­dents Ken­neth Al­lum, Khalid Has­sanali, and for­mer vice pres­i­dents Kei­th Ram­nath and Ja­maludin Khan were named in a Sun­day Ex­press ar­ti­cle claim­ing that Petrotrin was seek­ing to re­cov­er mil­lions of dol­lars in unau­tho­rised salary in­creas­es award­ed retroac­tive­ly to of­fi­cials who worked in the com­pa­ny's top ech­e­lon.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, Has­sanali, Ram­nath and Khan said all the trans­ac­tions were above board. The men said their lawyers have been in dis­cus­sion with Petrotrin on the mat­ter since March. The last cor­re­spon­dence from their at­tor­neys in Ju­ly to meet for fur­ther dis­cus­sions re­ceived no re­sponse from Petrotrin.

"This en­tire mat­ter is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of our at­tor­neys and I will not breach the tenets of the ju­di­cial process," Khan said.

"My ca­reer start­ed in 1974, more than four decades ago and I elect­ed to stay the course with Petrotrin and its pre­de­ces­sors. It has been a priv­i­lege and ho­n­our to serve both the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the State over this ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. This pub­lic cen­sure com­ing al­most a year af­ter my re­tire­ment in 2015 is re­gret­table and trau­mat­ic," he added. Khan said, "It is my hope that this mat­ter will be re­solved ex­pe­di­tious­ly and that the true and prop­er cir­cum­stances are ac­cu­rate­ly ven­ti­lat­ed."

The Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Has­sanali and Ram­nath to get their re­spons­es to the ac­cu­sa­tions.

Has­sanali said the mat­ter was "prop­er­ly set­tled" more than a year ago.

"This pub­lic spec­ta­cle on a mat­ter that was prop­er­ly set­tled by the pre­vi­ous Petrotrin board more than a year ago is most re­gret­table. It fol­lows my re­tire­ment in No­vem­ber 2015 af­ter serv­ing na­tion­al­ly and es­pe­cial­ly Petrotrin with a demon­stra­ble track record over al­most 40 years hav­ing held some 26 po­si­tions of in­creas­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and mul­ti­ple sec­ond­ments," Has­sanali said.

Ram­nath said he was "shocked and sad­dened" by the al­le­ga­tions.

"I have to be very cau­tious how I re­spond to this be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly this has le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions. I mean we have at­tor­neys Michael Quam­i­na and Dou­glas Mendes who are in cor­re­spon­dence with Petrotrin and Cami­ni Mara­jh, so I am very lim­it­ed in what I can say but what I can say is that this whole thing has been a very emo­tion­al, shock­ing and trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence for me. A year ago, I was con­front­ed with sud­den­ly hav­ing to leave Petrotrin and end my ca­reer for health rea­sons. That is not some­thing that I planned for, it was not some­thing that I wished for. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing that is not some­thing that I would wish up­on any­body be­cause my life has been ir­rev­o­ca­bly changed and not in a pos­i­tive way," Ram­nath said.

"So my de­par­ture from Petrotrin is not some­thing that I want­ed be­cause I had worked in my tenure there to do the best that I could, to do what I was hired to do which was to try and bring about pos­i­tive changes to the or­gan­i­sa­tion, to lead a trans­for­ma­tion ef­fort along with the oth­er ex­ec­u­tives and the pres­i­dent and the board," he said.

At­tempts to con­tact Al­lum for com­ment proved fu­tile.

The Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed a source knowl­edge­able about the sit­u­a­tion to get re­spons­es to the con­cerns raised in the ar­ti­cle that was pub­lished.

Among the ma­jor con­cerns raised was Has­sanali re­ceiv­ing a bonus of over $900,000 in 2015 when Petrotrin was do­ing so bad­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the source this bonus was paid in 2015 af­ter Has­sanali's salary ne­go­ti­a­tion was set­tled, but the bonus was ac­tu­al­ly for 2012.

In that year, Petrotrin made a net prof­it of over $1 bil­lion and every Petrotrin em­ploy­ee re­ceived prof­it shar­ing of over $70,000.

Has­sanali was con­firmed in the role of pres­i­dent ef­fec­tive May 1, 2012, af­ter act­ing in the po­si­tion for about four months.

He did not re­ceive a salary in­crease for the pro­mo­tion at that time but a writ­ten com­mit­ment was made to him that his com­pen­sa­tion would be ad­dressed.

Has­sanali's and Al­lum's salaries were not ad­dressed un­til 2015 and were made retroac­tive to 2012.

The Petrotrin board gave chair­man Lind­say Gillette the au­thor­i­ty to ne­go­ti­ate Has­sanali's salary.

The salary in­creas­es re­ceived by Ram­nath and Khan in 2015 were done to en­sure eq­ui­ty of pay ac­cord­ing to Petrotrin's com­pen­sa­tion pol­i­cy.

Why did the oth­er two vice pres­i­dents Ram­nath and Khan re­ceive salary in­creas­es in 2015?

Petrotrin's com­pen­sa­tion pol­i­cy re­quires eq­ui­ty of pay for peo­ple hold­ing sim­i­lar po­si­tions. Be­fore the in­creas­es, the oth­er vice pres­i­dents were mak­ing as much as $150,000/month. Even af­ter the salary in­crease, these two vice pres­i­dents Ram­nath and Khan were mak­ing $125,000/month and still were the two low­est paid vice pres­i­dents even though they had more tenure at Petrotrin than the high­er paid vice pres­i­dents. In the case of Ram­nath, he was hired in 2012 as vice pres­i­dent, Hu­man Re­sources, and had ad­di­tion­al func­tions placed un­der him, in­clud­ing Se­cu­ri­ty, Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment, ICT and Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment which is why his in­crease was retroac­tive to 2014.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ex­press ar­ti­cle, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre is quot­ed as say­ing "the State-owned com­pa­ny is tak­ing steps to re­cov­er unau­tho­rised pay­ments from its for­mer ex­ec­u­tives."

Olivierre said the "prob­lem of unau­tho­rised pay­ments" at Petrotrin was "self-re­port­ed" by the new board and she was "pleased" that the com­pa­ny was seek­ing to re­cov­er pub­lic funds.

Petrotrin con­firmed that their at­tor­neys are al­ready en­gaged in the mat­ter.