JSC Chairman irritated with dismissive CAL response

JOINT Select Committee (JSC) on State Enterprises chairman David Small expressed consternation yesterday over, what he described as, a “dismissive” reply from Caribbean Airlines (CAL) senior managers in response to recommendations made from a previous hearing and said the airlines’ reply of “Noted” to the lengthy discussion was unacceptable. At yesterday’s hearing, Small referred to an incident on November 29 last year in which CAL responded to the last committee hearing with a one-word response. Small said it was unprecedented, since he was appointed to chair the committee, that such a terse reply, forwarded by permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance Michelle Durhan-Kissoon, would come from a state enterprise.

“We have done reports and recommendations for several state enterprises in this country and when we hear back from them, there is a status of implementation of these suggestions. So Caribbean Airlines stands out from the others. None of them have had the audacity to write back to the committee and said ‘Noted’. It is unbelievably bad for that company. It is very dismissive, this is something that the Ministry of Finance encourages from a state enterprise? Because that is why I asked if anyone looked at it.”

CAL chairman Shameer Mohammed sought to explain the response, by saying officials did not have time to respond and review the suggestions forwarded as part of a Ministry of Finance cover letter. However Small said he was disturbed by the response and would not accept the excuse and reminded Mohammed of the committee’s constitutional powers. “You are responding to a committee. This committee gets it’s authority from the Constitution of TT, so you are forcing the committee to help you to understand the gravity of what has transpired. Your response is a non-response. We have a chapter to conduct work in a particular way.”

In his response, Mohammed said it was not the intention of CAL to insult the committee and said he received the recommendations but was simply not in any position to reply with a comprehensive update on the implementation of recommendations.