Danger of political firings
over 1 year in TT News day
DIANA MAHABIR-WYATT
THERE IS a distinction between fact and opinion that can destroy companies and nations or even, on another scale, can destroy families, partnerships and close relationships. It is the difference between decisive action based on political opinion and those based on objective problem-solving. A classic example hit the press this week following the cybercrime hacking of TSTT’s communication storage system.
As anyone in touch with multinational issues is aware, this is an international problem with expertise building up on the part of the better-funded criminal hackers who move faster than the slower-to-react-and-be-funded national victim organisations can match. The criminal mind is known for that: the expertise, the funding and the criminal results. That is why they make the profits they do.
It is a problem that is reported daily in The Financial Times, The Globe and Mail in Ontario, the Washington Post and hundreds of other finance-oriented news media. It has given rise to the development of counter-balancing firms of technical professionals who investigate, locate the specific gateway through which the hackers entered (and there can be many, therefore a job only for professional experts) and take corrective action.
There was also a press release earlier this week that PriceSmart, a local branch of a multinational firm owned by an American conglomerate that operates worldwide, very profitably, had been hacked and its database stolen. It’s response was to call in the third-party experts that exist worldwide for that purpose to investigate and build up an internal cyber-architecture immediately to prevent the breach from happening again.
Apparently, I am told, uncorrected it could, and usually does, happen again, as once breached other criminal hackers can easily enter the same portal and build upon the first breach. So getting in the "firemen" can contain and put out the fire. Professional management response, directed by the board of a large and very competent and profitable multinational firm, seems appropriate.
As everybody knows, the same breach happened to TSTT, at about the same time. And what was Trinidad’s response?
TSTT is a government-owned utility with a politically appointed board of political nominees that reacted according to Trini-style politics. Look for someone to blame. The union, which has for decades been known to secretly run TSTT, does what it always does: automatically called for dismissal of the top executives, focusing by name on the CEO, who was not selected for her cyber-expertise – CEOs seldom are, it is not their function – but for her managerial acumen, which is legendary.
But perhaps there is a political element to that as well? The politically appointed board obligingly looked for a scapegoat and fired the very competent chief executive officer whose administrative skills have turned the failing organisation around over the past few years, in the process bringing to an end the employment of a large number of long-time members of the union. Go figure.
Firing the other top executives, as the union is now calling for, will almost certainly result in weakening the organisation. And which professional will be willing to head TSTT in future? Uneasy lies the head that wears that crown. Political appointees in TT are only secure until the next election or until the next crisis caused by international criminals. In the meantime head hunters all over the Caribbean will be vieing for the very competent.
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