While the tur­bu­lence con­tin­ues on the board of Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL), the na­tion­al car­ri­er is re­port­ed­ly suf­fer­ing loss­es.If left to its own de­vices, a well-placed air­line source said it could very well end up like cash-strapped BWIA.In a March 17 re­port com­piled by per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Cheryl Black­man and sent to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dook­er­an and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er it was rec­om­mend­ed that a new board be ap­point­ed to pre­vent ex­po­sures to ad­verse risk to the na­tion­al air­line.As a re­sult of CAL's in­abil­i­ty to ac­com­plish its strate­gic ob­jec­tive, Black­man stat­ed that the sit­u­a­tion with the board can lead to wide­spread fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions for the com­pa­ny and coun­try, a re­turn to a loss-mak­ing air­line, con­tin­ued drain on the trea­sury and a re­turn of the days of the nomen­cla­ture as an in­ef­fi­cient air­line.

CAL, Black­man in­sist­ed, must be gov­erned by a board that is by law col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble for its suc­cess and must op­er­ate as a strong unit."The board in its present struc­ture and/or com­po­si­tion does not ap­pear to be able to ful­fil this crit­i­cal man­date since it is now em­broiled in mat­ters which are clear­ly dis­tract­ing it from fo­cus­ing on its main le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to­wards the com­pa­ny and meet­ing the le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tions of the Gov­ern­ment," Black­man had not­ed.Up­on re­ceipt of the re­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a source said, re­ferred it back to Cab­i­net who in turn for­ward­ed it to the Fi­nan­cial and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee and Dook­er­an last Mon­day.

Last Wednes­day, the com­mit­tee com­pris­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Vas­ant Bharath, Win­ston Dook­er­an, Fazal Karim, Em­manuel George and Chan­dresh Shar­ma met at the Min­istry of Fi­nance to dis­cuss the fu­ture of the board. Warn­er did not at­tend the meet­ing, sources said.It was agreed by the Min­is­ters that the board be re­tained, de­spite Black­man's rec­om­men­da­tions.CAL's board com­pris­es George Nicholas III as chair­man, vice chair­man Mo­han Jaikaran and five di­rec­tors.CAL has been mired in con­tro­ver­sy for the past sev­er­al months, the first be­ing when the di­rec­tors and Warn­er were at log­ger­heads over the de­ci­sion to fire for­mer cap­tain Ian Brun­ton.Warn­er had called on the board to do the eth­i­cal thing and re­sign.Nicholas and Warn­er sub­se­quent­ly mend­ed fences.

Dook­er­an to take con­trol of CAL

A source stat­ed that it was even rec­om­mend­ed re­cent­ly that Dook­er­an take full con­trol of the board over Warn­er."The Gov­ern­ment is re­fus­ing to face re­al­i­ty. While they are re­fus­ing to act, CAL is haem­or­rhag­ing mil­lions month­ly, which we can­not af­ford at this time," the air­line source said.The source in­di­cat­ed that all the di­rec­tors were not see­ing eye-to-eye with Nicholas.Among some of the find­ings com­ing out of four meet­ings in March, raised by CAL's vice chair­man and di­rec­tors which the Min­istry of Works me­di­at­ed, were:

• Lack of trust be­tween di­rec­tors and chair­man.

• Lack of ad­her­ence to the com­pa­ny's bye laws as it re­lates to the con­ven­ing of meet­ings.

• Al­leged use of deroga­to­ry re­marks on the part of the chair­man in re­gard­ing the func­tions of in­di­vid­u­als.

• Ac­tions tak­en were per­ceived to be tan­ta­mount to un­der­min­ing the in­tegri­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty of the board.

The re­port stat­ed that Nicholas did not of­fer any co­gent de­nounce­ment of the var­i­ous state­ments raised."It did not ap­pear that in the en­vi­ron­ment es­tab­lished the board was op­er­at­ing with any lev­el of co­he­sive­ness, con­fi­dence and trust to de­vel­op and guide the im­ple­men­ta­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties to bring about the strate­gic ob­jec­tives as iden­ti­fied for the com­pa­ny," Black­man wrote.In putting for­ward rec­om­men­da­tions, Black­man stat­ed that the min­istry's se­nior le­gal ad­vis­er was at pains to iden­ti­fy the fol­low­ing:

• Every com­pa­ny should be head­ed by an ef­fec­tive board."While in­di­vid­u­al­ly the mem­bers may poss­es ex­cel­lent skill sets, as a group, they do not ap­pear to be func­tion­ing and as such should be re­de­ployed to serve in oth­er fields of en­deav­ours and a new board ap­point­ed to pre­vent ex­po­sure to ad­verse risk to the na­tion­al air­line," Black­man not­ed.

In a meet­ing with board mem­bers last Mon­day at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Dook­er­an heard a litany of woes from di­rec­tors.Threats of le­gal ac­tion by one mem­ber against an­oth­er was al­so raised."Con­cerns about em­bar­rass­ing the par­ty was al­so raised."The board mem­bers were asked to work to­geth­er by Dook­er­an," the source said.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Warn­er re­fused com­ment.How­ev­er Al­lan Clo­vis, CAL di­rec­tor, said the board was still await­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the meet­ing.Asked about his stormy re­la­tion­ship with Nicholas, Clo­vis re­fused com­ment.At­temps to meet Dook­er­an proved fu­tile.