Rhon­dor Dowlat

With­in 72 hours af­ter be­ing in­struct­ed to go on im­me­di­ate leave un­til the end of his con­tract as gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Pu­bic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC), Ronald Forde was yes­ter­day re­in­stat­ed in his sub­stan­tive post.

Asked why the sud­den change and re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, line Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan told the T&T Guardian that "it was a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion."

Sinanan did not, how­ev­er, elab­o­rate but said that he will be meet­ing with the Board of PTSC and Forde to dis­cuss the is­sue to­day.

Forde, when con­tact­ed, said he was not in­formed of his re­in­state­ment of­fi­cial­ly even though an of­fi­cial re­lease was sent out by the min­istry to all me­dia hous­es at 10.37 am (yes­ter­day).

Forde, al­though he ex­pressed hap­pi­ness at his re­in­state­ment, de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as "dan­ger­ous."

"This threat­ens the democ­ra­cy of the coun­try where some­one could go be­fore the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) of the Par­lia­ment to try to get bet­ter goods and ser­vices for the coun­try and then be rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged af­ter. This sure­ly threat­ens the democ­ra­cy of the coun­try," Forde said.

Forde al­so ex­pressed con­cern that his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer has now been tar­nished. His con­tract ends on Feb­ru­ary 28, next year.

"I worked dili­gent­ly for many years as a pub­lic ser­vant, as a teacher, then at the Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, even over­seas at the British Vir­gin Is­lands, and PTSC and I have nev­er been through this. No one ever had to chal­lenge my pro­fes­sion­al­ism and abil­i­ty and this is painful for me. This is a fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion," Forde said.

Forde said he would be seek­ing a meet­ing with Sinanan to dis­cuss the way for­ward. "A re­la­tion­ship has been es­tranged here and I would like to know how best I can move for­ward from here."

On Fri­day night, af­ter 8 pm, Forde who was part of a meet­ing with the PTSC Board was asked to leave the room and then lat­er asked to re­turn where he was hand­ed a let­ter signed by PTSC's chair­man Ter­rence Beepath in­form­ing him that he was be­ing sent on im­me­di­ate leave.

This no­tice came four days af­ter he (Forde) went be­fore the JSC and spoke about the PTSC's op­er­a­tions and what was need­ed to make it ef­fi­cient, in­clud­ing rais­ing bus fares.

Forde, in a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, said be­fore he was giv­en the let­ter he was told ver­bal­ly that be­cause of what he pre­sent­ed last Tues­day be­fore the Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture JSC, the min­istry had to now "do dam­age con­trol."

One of the main points raised by Forde was the need to ap­proach Cab­i­net with re­gards to in­creas­ing fares. How­ev­er, the min­istry im­me­di­ate­ly de­nied Forde's state­ment by say­ing that in or­der for an of­fi­cial fare in­crease to hap­pen, PTSC must first con­sult with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the pub­lic.

Beepath, in a ra­dio in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said Forde had over 80 days ac­cu­mu­lat­ed leave and was asked to pro­ceed on leave in re­la­tion to that and the de­ci­sion had noth­ing to do with his state­ments be­fore the JSC. He said the Board praised Forde for his con­duct be­fore the JSC.