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A new board has been put in place at Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL). Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar made the announcement at a post-cabinet media conference at the Red House, Port of Spain, on June 6.
She said the new chair was Reyna Kowlessar with vice-chairman Videsh Priam and directors Darren Ali (auditor), Lauren Peart and Selwyn Cudjoe.
Before announcing the members of the board, Persad-Bissessar said there were a lot of problems at the airline money-wise.
“CAL sent us 20 pages, don’t kill me if it was 19, of things they said, ‘You must pay this now or CAL will go into blacklist, the airline will collapse, it will fall.
"One of the items, remembering off the top of my head, was uniforms, and there were many others like that. So it was 'jumbieing' the government: 'If you do not pay this money,' and it’s zillions we’re talking about, 'the airline will collapse.'
"So we had to go through with a fine-tooth comb and see which ones were absolutely essential.”
She said another problem was that CAL had taken a $260 million loan that had been rolling over year after year. She said cabinet had to agree to roll over the loan again.
“Not a cent has been paid back on this loan. CAL is in the red, but every time they speak, they’re talking about the gains they’re making, how much profit they’re making, none of that is true. These boards have to go.
“How many years they did not file financial accounts? They don’t even know now what is the true financial account? You’ve failed to file audited statements, I gave you the amount."
Asked why there was an urgency to have the Angostura Board removed, she said, “Why was there a rush for them to stay? Why did they want to stay? Last week I made the point that people were reluctant to send in their resignations, we said they should do the right thing and do so.
" They decided they weren’t doing it and the next day I saw it reported they went en bloc in some cases. There is a process in law and we will follow the law in appointing the new boards. There’s a process within the law, we’re within that process and we will follow the law.”
Persad-Bissessar was asked about cyber-bullying by Minister in the Ministry of Housing Anil Roberts on his Facebook page Dougla Politics and whether she approved of that sort of behaviour.
She replied, “That’s a trap question. If I say yes, if I say no, I’m in a trap there. Of course ministers have their own voices. From time to time we have to pull them in and say, “Ey, rein in, stay in your section. It happens.”
Asked if that had happened in Roberts’ case, she said, “Did what happen? I didn’t cyberbully anybody. I said clearly last week if you don’t go, I will use the law and I will lose the process.”
She was asked again why it was urgent for the Angostura board to resign, given that the government was not the majority stakeholder, she said,
“Every one of those persons are political appointees. They did not apply, they are appointed by the political directorate. When that directorate changes, they change.”
Asked whether there was some difficulty in having the entire board of a publicly listed company resign, she said she saw no difficulty.
“In the same way these things were created there were problems, there were problems, they were not going, they should go, they must not go, they must stay, there is no problem. We have followed the law and put the boards in place.
She asked the media what they thought would happen if no board was in place.
“We will put a board in place, we will have a management team, and then we have the lower-level functionaries operating as well. You’ll have other persons. But the important thing here is that these were political appointees. They were handpicked by the cabinet of the Republic of TT. There is a new cabinet of TT.”
Persad-Bissessar said the board of the TT Electricity Commission was discussed but not confirmed.
She said a new board for TTT would be put in soon.
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