Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) says it plans to write to new­ly-ap­point­ed Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, in an at­tempt to get res­o­lu­tion to sev­er­al out­stand­ing is­sues it has.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the union said past in­ter­ac­tions with Min­is­ter Im­bert had re­sult­ed in un­re­solved is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor.

Dur­ing his tenure as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, the re­lease said, Im­bert had as­sured the CWU that a foren­sic au­dit in­to the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) would be com­plet­ed with­in six weeks fol­low­ing a meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2022.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the CWU, re­peat­ed fol­low-ups through of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence on April 1, 2022, and mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions in 2023 yield­ed no re­sponse or ac­knowl­edge­ment.

“The lack of re­sponse speaks vol­umes,” said CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer.

“De­spite our ef­forts to high­light TSTT’s mis­man­age­ment, in­clud­ing wastage, gold­en hand­shakes, nepo­tism, and er­ro­neous spend­ing, there has been no mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment.”

The union al­so ques­tioned the re­newed dis­cus­sions around the sale of TSTT shares, main­tain­ing that the com­pa­ny re­mained prof­itable and vi­able, hav­ing de­clared prof­its twice.

While the CWU re­frained from im­me­di­ate­ly dis­cred­it­ing Im­bert’s ap­point­ment, it un­der­scored the need for im­me­di­ate di­a­logue and ac­tion. “We will be writ­ing for a meet­ing with the min­is­ter and TSTT man­age­ment be­tween March 24 and 28, 2025, to dis­cuss the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture vi­a­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, we are not over­ly op­ti­mistic, giv­en his track record, in­clud­ing de­lays in ad­dress­ing crit­i­cal pen­sion is­sues un­der the TEL­CO plan,” Ogeer added.

The CWU re­it­er­at­ed its de­mand for out­stand­ing re­ports, in­clud­ing the TSTT Fit for Pur­pose Re­port, in­volv­ing for­mer min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young; a foren­sic au­dit in­to TSTT, which re­mains in­com­plete since 2022; and the Cy­ber In­cur­sion Re­port, which was pre­vi­ous­ly un­der Min­is­ter Gon­za­les’ port­fo­lio and may sur­face dur­ing the tran­si­tion.