Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed (Plipde­co) man­agers, vice pres­i­dent of Busi­ness Ser­vices Niegel Subi­ah and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Richelle Ly­man, have been fired.

The man­agers were giv­en their let­ters of dis­missal yes­ter­day, their at­tor­neys told Guardian Me­dia.

Subi­ah’s let­ter of dis­missal cit­ed six charges of mis­con­duct.

“You, Neigel Subi­ah…failed to per­form your du­ties to the high­est stan­dards pos­si­ble, hon­est­ly and with the ut­most good faith, dili­gence and ex­pe­di­ence and to act in the best in­ter­est of the cor­po­ra­tion ...,” the let­ter stat­ed.

Both Subi­ah and Ly­man were ini­tial­ly sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave amid in­ter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary charges in Jan­u­ary con­cern­ing the al­leged unau­tho­rised pay­ment of salary in­creas­es.

They de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, with Subi­ah claim­ing, through at­tor­neys, that he had ev­i­dence of “po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion, waste and mis­man­age­ment in his pos­ses­sion which he in­tends to re­veal to the new­ly ap­point­ed board.”

Subi­ah is rep­re­sent­ed by Free­dom Law Cham­bers, which is led by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC.

Free­dom Law, in a writ­ten re­sponse to Plipde­co chair­man An­nette Wat­tie, ac­cused the board of mak­ing ma­li­cious and base­less claims that were part of a “po­lit­i­cal vendet­ta.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Subi­ah and Ly­man, chair­man Wat­tie said, “So I’m a mad woman that I just in­vit­ed him (Subi­ah) to a meet­ing to­day? I’m a mad woman to just send him on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave since Jan­u­ary 29th?”

She sub­se­quent­ly re­fused to com­ment on their dis­missals.

On May 29, Subi­ah was asked to at­tend a meet­ing with the board of di­rec­tors yes­ter­day. He did not at­tend on the ad­vice of his at­tor­neys.

Go­ing in­to more de­tail about their client’s claims of knowl­edge, Subi­ah’s at­tor­neys ques­tioned the board’s al­leged pro­cure­ment and pur­chase of a scan­ner for the Port of Point Lisas at a cost of $4 mil­lion.

But Wat­tie dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions of vic­tim­i­sa­tion and im­prop­er pro­cure­ment prac­tices.

“The board of Plipde­co is not in­volved in any in­volve­ment of any scan­ner. These things have ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with the board. If you read the Pro­cure­ment Act, you would see that the board has noth­ing to do with pro­cure­ment…That pal­let scan­ner, I don’t even know what that is about. I nev­er even heard those words in the eight months I’ve been in Plipde­co,” she said.

“If it’s one thing I don’t do, it is vic­timise peo­ple. Tell them to come with the facts. I think some of us may start re­sign­ing be­cause we don’t want our name tar­nished...I have done noth­ing wrong. Even now, I am act­ing with in­tegri­ty be­cause I have so much to tell you that even Je­sus might have to take a break.”

In a June 1 le­gal, Free­dom Cham­bers called on Wat­tie to re­sign.

“Giv­en that your ap­point­ment is pure­ly po­lit­i­cal, it was in­cum­bent up­on the PNM-ap­point­ed board to re­sign forth­with. This is the es­tab­lished po­lit­i­cal and cor­po­rate pro­to­col. In­cred­i­bly, you and your board con­tin­ue to cling to of­fice and op­er­ate as if you are obliv­i­ous to the change in gov­ern­ment. More im­por­tant­ly, you have dou­bled down on your po­lit­i­cal vendet­ta in a last-ditch, raw and naked grab for pow­er by con­tin­u­ing your po­lit­i­cal cam­paign of ha­rass­ment and per­se­cu­tion,” the let­ter said.

But Wat­tie yes­ter­day ve­he­ment­ly de­nied be­ing a mem­ber of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Wat­tie added that Plipde­co is not a typ­i­cal state en­ter­prise, as it is a pub­licly list­ed com­pa­ny. She said the board wrote Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John on May 14 ex­plain­ing its rea­sons for not re­sign­ing af­ter the change of gov­ern­ment.

“This board has writ­ten a let­ter to the min­is­ter, ad­vis­ing the min­is­ter that these are the op­tions open. We have an AGM com­ing up soon, you can change di­rec­tors then. You could leave us just like the PNM did, or we have a le­gal opin­ion ad­vis­ing that we can re­sign one by one…Ask them why the UNC board that was in­stalled be­tween 2010 and 2015 was not re­moved by the PNM un­til 2021,” Wat­tie said.

“I can­not send you the let­ter I sent to the min­is­ter be­cause I have oth­er mat­ters in the let­ter, right? We have told the min­is­ter that we have this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter, and the board just wants the chance to end it be­cause we al­so have a le­gal opin­ion that tells us that when you start an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they have to end it. Be­cause you have to clear the peo­ple’s names, or you charge them. I can’t just start an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and have peo­ple think­ing so and so must be a thief…if you know what I mean…I have to end it,” she ex­plained.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter John told Guardian Me­dia that checks in the min­istry have ‘not yet un­earthed such a let­ter.’

“The PS/MOWI has reached out to the In­vest­ments Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Fi­nance to as­cer­tain whether such a let­ter was di­rect­ed there. So far, no in­for­ma­tion has been forth­com­ing,” she said.