Last week, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs rolled out to its staff the new vi­sion and strate­gic plan for the or­gan­i­sa­tion. This is part of the over­all plan by the min­istry to stream­line its op­er­a­tions and to en­sure that it aligns the right per­son­nel with the tasks ahead. The strate­gic plan is part of the over­all re­quire­ment of the Gov­ern­ment, which has man­dat­ed all min­istries to pre­pare a strate­gic plan and to roll it out. The Min­istry of Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my is the lead min­istry in this ef­fort. The Min­istry of En­er­gy launched the strate­gic plan at the Crowne Plaza ho­tel and it has come at a time when there has been tur­moil at the min­istry and when many of its most se­nior and ex­pe­ri­enced per­son­nel have ei­ther re­tired, re­signed or been told to go. In the last six months, the Min­istry of En­er­gy has dis­band­ed the post of di­rec­tor. This led to four of the sev­en di­rec­tors hav­ing to re­tire and leave the min­istry and three re­vert­ing to their posts in the pub­lic ser­vice and, in the process, los­ing more than $10,000 a month in their salaries. In­dus­try sources told the Busi­ness Guardian that the loss of these ex­pe­ri­enced pub­lic ser­vants was ex­treme­ly wor­ry­ing.

Gone are: He­le­na In­niss-King, for­mer di­rec­tor of re­source man­age­ment, who re­tired; Mo­han Jo­gie, di­rec­tor of con­tract man­age­ment, who re­tired; Os­wald Adams, di­rec­tor of down­stream re­tail mar­ket­ing, re­tired; and Ver­non De Sil­va, di­rec­tor of en­er­gy plan­ning and re­search, re­tired. Di­rec­tors in the Min­istry of En­er­gy were con­sid­ered to be out­side of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, were hired on con­tract and, there­fore, were able to work pass 60, which is the nor­mal re­tire­ment age from the Pub­lic Ser­vice. Al­so, the es­tab­lish­ment of the post of di­rec­tor al­lowed the Min­istry of En­er­gy to pay them high­er salaries than af­ford­ed oth­er pub­lic ser­vants be­cause the min­istry was re­tain­ing some of the most ex­pe­ri­enced and knowl­edge­able em­ploy­ees. Hei­di Wong, who was the di­rec­tor of com­mer­cial eval­u­a­tion, has had to re­turn to her pub­lic ser­vice post as se­nior econ­o­mist in the Min­istry of En­er­gy as has Mon­ty Be­har­ry, who re­vert­ed to se­nior ge­ol­o­gist. While Sel­wyn Lash­ley, who was the di­rec­tor of liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas and gas ex­ports, has re­turned to his sub­stan­tive post as chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer in the Min­istry of En­er­gy, he is the act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. Lash­ley is re­port­ed to be se­nior to the cur­rent act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Richard Oliv­er, which has cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion that may re­quire the in­ter­ven­tion and cor­rec­tion of the di­rec­tor of per­son­nel ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Over the last six months, Ju­lian­na Boodram, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of En­er­gy, was moved from her post af­ter a ma­jor fall­out with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine. Leroy May­ers, who was on pre-re­tire­ment leave, was brought back in­to the min­istry and his leave bought out in an ef­fort to bring some sta­bil­i­ty to the min­istry. This, in ef­fect, means that May­ers, who has been re­tained as a con­sul­tant af­ter his of­fi­cial re­tire­ment in Jan­u­ary, is in the min­istry in an ad­vi­so­ry po­si­tion. As a re­sult of pub­lic ser­vice reg­u­la­tions, he is not in a po­si­tion to give in­struc­tions to any mem­ber of staff. The loss of some of its most ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple has left a gap­ing hole in the Min­istry of En­er­gy. The Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Kevin Ram­nar­ine, has cho­sen to fill the breech by hir­ing ad­vis­ers as he tries to move the min­istry for­ward. Min­istry sources said that Ram­nar­ine now has nine ad­vis­ers. Among the ad­vis­ers are: For­mer Guardian news ed­i­tor, Pri­or Be­har­ry, Randy Ra­mad­hars­ingh (broth­er of Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh) Er­rol Baldeo, Wil­son Lal­la, Clement Ram­roop, Ria Karim (daugh­ter of Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Fazal Karim) Vashti Guyadeen, Joyce Lynch and Frank Look Kin, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny. Look Kin and Lynch have worked at the min­istry for years un­der dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Pro­fes­sion­als move on

Even as the strate­gic plan is be­ing rolled out, the min­istry has con­tin­ued to bleed its pro­fes­sion­al staff. In the last three months alone, more than 12 young pro­fes­sion­als have left the min­istry for oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties. These in­clude Stephen Ja­groop, who was head­ing the at­tempts to get the deep­wa­ter bid round go­ing. The ap­par­ent ex­o­dus has put a strain on an al­ready poor­ly-staffed min­istry with lim­it­ed abil­i­ty to at­tract and re­tain the best and bright­est be­cause of the low salaries in the pub­lic ser­vice. The pro­fes­sion­al al­lowance that has been paid to most of the em­ploy­ees is prov­ing in­suf­fi­cient. The Busi­ness Guardian has been told that the mat­ter is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the min­is­ter as he at­tempts to solve the is­sue. Mean­while, the min­istry has con­tin­ued to miss dead­lines with the lat­est be­ing a sec­ond post­pone­ment of the deep­wa­ter bid round. The Gov­ern­ment, when it was in Op­po­si­tion, was crit­i­cal of the PNM for the length of time it took to have bid rounds, but since Min­is­ter Ram­nar­ine came in­to of­fice ten months ago, no bid rounds have been held. Al­so, he is yet to sign the pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts for the deep­wa­ter blocks that were award­ed al­most a year ago.

The ad­vis­ers

Pri­or Be­har­ry

Randy Ra­mad­hars­ingh

Er­rol Baldeo

Wil­son Lal­la

Clement Ram­roop

Ria Karim

Vashti Guyadeen

Joyce Lynch

Frank Look Kin

Min­istry re­sponds:

The Busi­ness Guardian re­ceived the fol­low­ing re­sponse on Tues­day night from Richard Oliv­er, act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs, in re­ply to ques­tions sent to Min­is­ter Ram­nar­ine:

Cur­rent­ly, the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs has the fol­low­ing ad­vis­ers:

• Per­son­al ad­vis­er,

• Se­nior en­er­gy ad­vis­er,

• Ad­vi­sor, en­er­gy, se­cu­ri­ty and in­fra­struc­ture,

• Re­new­able en­er­gy ad­vis­er,

• Se­nior le­gal ad­vis­er.

"It should be not­ed that all of these po­si­tions have been ap­proved by the Cab­i­net. Fur­ther­more, these po­si­tions are in­te­gral to prop­er and ef­fi­cient func­tion­ing of this high­ly tech­ni­cal and com­plex Min­istry.

The Min­istry al­so sec­onds per­son­nel from state en­ter­pris­es un­der it's port­fo­lio.