Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) has promised to “bust more files” on the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (TSTT) in the com­ing weeks, in or­der to es­ca­late scruti­ny amid al­le­ga­tions of fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment, po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence and poor treat­ment of work­ers.

The union again sharply crit­i­cised a re­cent three-day TSTT board re­treat in To­ba­go, call­ing it a “frol­ick­ing ex­er­cise” and a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.

A Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive re­vealed that TSTT had been billed $436,081.78 for the ex­er­cise. The com­pa­ny has de­nied this was the amount but has not pro­vid­ed the in­for­ma­tion on the ex­act fig­ures.

Ad­dress­ing the me­dia out­side TSTT’s head of­fice in Port-of-Spain, CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer de­scribed cir­cu­lat­ing videos that show ex­ec­u­tives play­ing games and so­cial­is­ing.

“If this com­pa­ny was so se­ri­ous, why didn’t you take a pho­to of an ex­ec­u­tive in a board­room show­ing the strate­gic di­rec­tion or fi­nan­cial growth plan? In­stead, we see bean­bags and fun—not plan­ning,” Ogeer said.

“In three weeks, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union will buss, buss more files. We saw po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, we saw union-bust­ing tac­tics and we will ex­pose it all.”

Ogeer de­mand­ed full dis­clo­sure of re­treat costs and ex­ec­u­tive spend­ing, point­ing out, “The union has doc­u­ments. Let me say that again, the union has doc­u­ments. What we do not have is the re­vised in­voice. That is what we do not have.”

She al­so crit­i­cised TSTT’s han­dling of em­ploy­ee pay and ben­e­fits, call­ing a $15,000 one-off pay­ment to staff “mean­ing­less.” She ac­cused the com­pa­ny, led by act­ing CEO Keino Cox and chair­man Kern Das, of fail­ing to pro­vide back­pay, pen­sion in­creas­es, or salary ad­just­ments de­spite claim­ing fi­nan­cial con­straints.

“Many demon­stra­tions are go­ing to take place as we send a mes­sage to this dis­re­spect­ful com­pa­ny, TSTT. A $15,000 one-off pay­ment means noth­ing. This dis­re­spect­ful com­pa­ny, led by Keino Cox and a UNC-ap­point­ed chair­man, Kern Dass, is telling re­trenched work­ers from 2022 and hard-work­ing ac­tive em­ploy­ees that they are on­ly worth $15,000.”

She fur­ther al­leged po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ap­point­ments, high­light­ing WASA chair­man Roshan Bab­wah as one such ex­am­ple.

“We have griev­ances. There are peo­ple in the com­pa­ny who can­not get act­ing po­si­tions, pro­mo­tions—noth­ing. Mean­while, these per­sons are com­ing in as UNC ap­pointees. And what are they get­ting? Trav­el ben­e­fits. ... They went to Chi­na and Barcelona. Bab­wah on­ly came in No­vem­ber and al­ready went to Chi­na and Barcelona.”

Ogeer called on Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath and for­mer union lead­ers now in of­fice, to en­sure trans­paren­cy.

“Bar­ry Padarath, when he was in the op­po­si­tion as the shad­ow MP, was very vo­cal in Par­lia­ment. He want­ed in­for­ma­tion from the union and want­ed to chal­lenge the PNM gov­ern­ment,” she said.

“Where is your fit-for-pur­pose re­port in TSTT? Where is the cy­ber in­cur­sion re­port you promised? You were ‘bad’ in op­po­si­tion, and now you sit (in Gov­ern­ment) on mute.”

She added, “Let me al­so say this: for those who say the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union sup­ports the PNM gov­ern­ment, that is non­sense as well. Mar­vin Gon­za­les sat in the chair and spoke loud­ly about what is hap­pen­ing in TSTT now, but when you were there, you did noth­ing.”