JSC: CAL CEO flouted rules

THE JOINT Select Committee (JSC) on State Enterprises says new Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL) CEO Garvin Medera has flouted a number of rules and proper procedures since his appointment last October, and the issues included the hiring of employees without security background checks and sitting on an interview panel that included employees from his previous employer Digicel TT.

The issues were raised on Tuesday at a JSC media conference held at the Parliament building, Port of Spain.

JSC member Fazal Karim said there were concerns about the recent recruitment and selection process including that a number of new mangers were former employees of Digicel TT which was the former employer of incumbent CEO, Garvin Medera, and he sat in on the panel which interviewed these employees. Karim said this was an obvious conflict of interest and breach of good human resource practice.

He also said security background checks were not carried out on several new hires including some senior staff.

"This is a clear breach of CAL's own policy."

The JSC called for CAL to restart the process for all employees for which background checks had not been done or were incomplete.

JSC member Wade Mark said it was the "heights of recklessness and irresponsibility" for the CEO of an airline, where passenger safety should be the number one priority, to indicate the policy of background security checks that had been in place for decades had not been followed.

"This CEO ought to be taken to task."

Other practices flagged included continued employment of people who had passed the retirement age of 60 years and the continued practice seeking overseas pilots without an effort to establish whether local pilots could be sourced.

The JSC also called for a compensation survey to be conducted as a small number of people were receiving millions annually.