RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) led by Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get pick­et­ed the home of a Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP) board mem­ber over al­leged nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion at the state-owned com­pa­ny.

The protest was held near­ly nine months af­ter a whistle­blow­er was al­leged­ly dis­missed for rais­ing con­cerns about a se­nior man­ag­er.

Ro­get de­fend­ed the union’s de­ci­sion to go to the board mem­ber’s res­i­dence, stat­ing: “We are ex­er­cis­ing our right as work­ers and as a trade union rep­re­sent­ing the NP work­ers, the right to pick­et­ing.

“We could have been any­where else this Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon, but we chose to be here be­cause of the ar­ro­gant and dis­re­spect­ful man­ner in which (name called) has treat­ed the work­ers of Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny.”

Ro­get claimed a whistle­blow­er who raised al­le­ga­tions against a high-rank­ing NP of­fi­cial for in­ter­fer­ing with her per­for­mance score was dis­missed last Oc­to­ber. He said de­spite the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions, the of­fi­cial was re­in­stat­ed and even had her con­tract re­newed for two years.

“(Name called), who was ac­cused of in­ter­fer­ing with her own per­for­mance ap­praisal, was brought back,” Ro­get said. “We feel that lev­el of dis­re­spect, bring­ing back that per­son with­out her name be­ing cleared, must be brought to the pub­lic’s at­ten­tion. All is not right at NP,” he said.

Ro­get em­pha­sised that the union con­sid­ered the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions to be in­con­clu­sive, al­though there were claims that it had been re­solved.

“The union was not part of that in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We would have liked to see her per­for­mance pri­or prop­er­ly ex­am­ined. Every­where this per­son goes, there is a trail of con­fu­sion that fol­lows her. How can she have a score high­er than oth­er peo­ple in the com­pa­ny?” he asked.

The OW­TU leader al­so ques­tioned the mo­tives be­hind the re­in­state­ment and sug­gest­ed pos­si­ble nepo­tism due to shared sur­names be­tween the board of­fi­cial and the man­ag­er.

“I am not say­ing that they are rel­a­tives be­cause they car­ry the same name. Let the me­dia in­ves­ti­gate that. But some­thing is rad­i­cal­ly wrong, amiss, in the minds of the work­ers, and work­ers are in­censed that when the is­sue was raised by a whistle­blow­er, that whistle­blow­er is out of NP now,” he said.

“They leave these po­si­tions va­cant and ma­nip­u­late and bring in their own peo­ple to ex­er­cise and put in place their agen­da.”

Ro­get al­so claimed that there were oth­er de­ci­sions tak­en by the board that reeked of cor­rup­tion.

“The board of NP seems to be car­ry­ing out ques­tion­able in­struc­tions and ac­tions that are in­im­i­cal to the per­for­mance of NP. This pick­et­ing is the first of a num­ber of ac­tions we are go­ing to take,” he warned.

Ro­get said more protests will fol­low in the com­ing months as the union ramps up its ef­forts against nepo­tism and mis­man­age­ment in state com­pa­nies.

“We want prop­er ethics and good ac­count­abil­i­ty. Get­ting the chair­man and board out of NP is not our ob­jec­tive. We want prop­er and ho­n­ourable man­age­ment of state en­ter­pris­es, in­clud­ing NP.”

Ro­get called for the NP board and man­age­ment to re­sign.