UNC MP Barry Padarath has demanded answers on TSTT’s hiring of former CNC3 news anchor Khamal Georges and he also wants to know whether an upcoming legal notice for exemptions to the Freedom of Information act is to hide “what’s going on” in the company.
Padarath raised the queries at last night’s Monday Night Forum.
Padarath listed a host of queries for TSTT based on the Freedom of Information Act about the company’s hiring of Georges as senior manager of environmental, social and reputation management recently.
Queries included the criteria for selection, process/procedure to employ him, the team used to evaluate and/or interview him, their report, terms and conditions, prior holder of the post, if advertised and how, applicants and their qualifications, the duties involved in the job, board minutes on evaluation/selection, the process used to hire TSTT managers, their remuneration and all information on TSTT managers’ packages.
Padarath noted that the Appeal Court in July upheld a judgement that TSTT must answer FOIA queries after the company contested efforts to have the questions answered.
However, he said the UNC has now noted a Legal Notice (143) on the agenda of Parliament (which resumes after the recess on Friday) and that the notice involves exemptions to the FOIA act.
“Is this Legal Notice to circumvent the Appeal Court’s ruling? What’s inside TSTT that Government is going to such great lengths to hide?” he asked.
Padarath said on August 25, an email from the CEO’s office—in a request for an update on the information on Georges’ hiring—stated the matter was sent to the Legal department. Padarath said it should have gone to the FOIA department based on the court’s ruling.
Alleging there were claims Georges was being paid $75,000 monthly, he warned that “Anand (Ramlogan) and Jayanti (Lutchmedial) are waiting at the Privy Council.”
Padarath questioned who “determined the post was to be created and not advertised” and “which Minister passed the instruction to TSTT chairman Lisa Agard to hire Georges.”
He asked if the job was a reward for “biased/political slants” against the UNC by a media house over the past few years. He asked if this was the “highest form of interference of hiring political hatchet men/women who did PNM bidding to prevent information” emerging.
UNC’s David Lee meanwhile dismissed news of the Prime Minister’s meeting with Proman in Switzerland yesterday—and Proman’s US$1 billion investment in T&T. Lee said Government was trying to make it sound like they were doing something when he claimed the money was just $100 million annually for normal maintenance costs for 14 plants.
“You didn’t have to go to Switzerland to find out that, it’s done yearly.”
Lee asked if the Prime Minister’s trip to Proman was really about selling Clico’s Methanol Holdings shares. He accused T&T’s business chambers of praising Government’s previous budgets and challenged chambers to analyse the upcoming one better.
Meanwhile, Tarhaqua Obika said teachers sent the People’s National Movement Government a “message” yesterday by boycotting classes on the first day of the new school year.
“Give dem hell! Whether sick-in, sick-out! March! Protest to get them out of office!”
UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar wasn’t present at the meeting.