Businessman Arthur Lok Jack, the former chairman of Caribbean Airlines (CAL), yesterday rebuked Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, calling on him to stop politicising national service. Lok Jack yesterday took issue with Ramlogan's repeated statement that Lok Jack chaired a PNM-appointed CAL board. "If you find, I've given national service...well, the country has had 48 years of Independence and PNM ran it for 37 years. 80 per cent. Who you want me to... allyuh should have won more elections," was Lok Jack's rebuke to the AG. "We not working for the PNM. We are not doing PNM work. We don't do anybody's work. We do our work as we see it. If you ask us to help, we will come out to help," he said.
Lok Jack is one of the country's top businessmen, serving as the chairman of two major publicly listed companies-Guardian Holdings Ltd and Neal & Massy Holdings-as well as running his own hugely successful regional business, Associated Brands. He said the last thing he wanted to do was run afoul of the Government of the day, which was his Government. "Stop the policticising of national service. It has to stop. Choose the right people. Don't care where they come from, choose the right people for the boards," was his advice. Lok Jack's said it's time the Government get on with the business of running the country. "Growth is what we have to achieve. We need to get growth in the economy. If we don't get growth, big unemployment next year," he said.
"What does that mean? We live in T&T. It is a small island. We are short on human resources. What do you mean by a PNM- appointed board? We are doing national service. We were begged and cajoled to come out of our private sector jobs and come and do national service of the country and that's what we did," he told reporters at a press conference at the Carlton Savannah hotel yesterday. "We went through all sorts of issues in the Integrity Legislation, for what? We were doing national service. This kind of behaviour does not encourage people to come out, if the you have a certain skill, to help the country and give back to the country, this is not going to happen. You're going to drive all the good people away," he warned.
Lok Jack called the press conference to defend his board's three year tenure against statements made by Ramlogan during yesterday's post cabinet briefing. Ramlogan has criticised the board's choice of ATR as the turboprop-jet-of-choice as being arrived at through a "flawed process." Flanked by Neal & Massy chairman and former board member Gervase Warner and CAL's former legal advisor, Rachel Laquis, Lok Jack produced board minutes and even a analysis his company had undertaken between Bombadier and ATR. Lok Jack said his board resigned on June 1, and while it was leaning toward ATR, no decision was made.
His board had prioritised changing the jet fleet and had engaged in discussions between Airbus and Boeing. Had they remained at the helm, Lok Jack said, they would have looked to change the turboprop fleet in May 2011. While he has steered clear of making statements on the issue, Lok Jack said he questioned the objectivity of Dunne's report. "Mr Dunne works for an organisation, partially owned by EADS. EADS are the owners of ATR. How can Mr Dunne be objective on whether ATR is a safe airline or not? If I was Bombadier, I would be very upset about that," he said.