Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Two months af­ter for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an failed to re­veal the salaries of sev­er­al heads at var­i­ous state agen­cies, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert is ques­tion­ing what is re­spon­si­ble for the de­lay. The ques­tion was one of two that were posed by Im­bert in Par­lia­ment on May 11.

The MP had asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

1. Could the min­is­ter state what were the per­cent­age in­creas­es in ba­sic salary for work­ers at Petrotrin, TSTT and T&TEC for each year over the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2006 to March 2012?

2. Could the min­is­ter state, with­out nam­ing the of­fice hold­ers, the to­tal com­pen­sa­tion pack­age, in­clu­sive of salary and all al­lowances, as of April 12, 2012, paid to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer or equiv­a­lent of­fice in the fol­low­ing state en­ter­pris­es/state com­pa­nies/statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties:

• First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd

• Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd

• Evolv­ing Tec­Knolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of T&T

• Caribbean Air­lines Ltd

• Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion

• Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T

• Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T

• Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny

• Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go

• Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd

To date, the ques­tions list­ed on the Or­der Pa­per as num­bers 96 and 97 re­main out­stand­ing. The ques­tions were de­ferred for two weeks on June 4. They were first de­ferred on May 11, and sec­ond­ly on May 25. Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact Dook­er­an or the for­mer ju­nior fi­nance min­is­ter Del­mon Bak­er on the out­stand­ing is­sue proved fu­tile.

How­ev­er, Im­bert told Sun­day Guardian that it was "very un­usu­al" that the in­for­ma­tion has not been forth­com­ing. "The gov­ern­ment avoid­ed an­swer­ing these ques­tions on at least three con­sec­u­tive ses­sions span­ning over a pe­ri­od as much as six weeks.

It was very un­usu­al be­cause the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment is al­ways boast­ing of how ready and quick they are to an­swer par­lia­men­tary ques­tions, un­like what they al­leged oc­curred un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. I can­not un­der­stand why they are duck­ing an­swer­ing these ques­tions," Im­bert said.

Im­bert said over the last six years the ag­gre­gate in­creas­es in state en­ter­pris­es were over 30 per cent. "What is the mys­tery? I did my own in­for­mal re­search and when you add up the in­creas­es over the last six to sev­en years in those state en­ter­pris­es for unionised work­ers in col­lec­tive agree­ments, you are go­ing to cross 30 per cent."

On the sec­ond is­sue, Im­bert said the pub­lic al­so had a right to know the salaries of chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers head­ing the var­i­ous state agen­cies. "There are a num­ber of new peo­ple that have been put in­to po­si­tions in the last two years who are en­joy­ing very hefty salaries.

Why are they duck­ing the ques­tions? They said the an­swers need to be re­viewed and fine-tuned. They just need to say whether it is true or not if these var­i­ous heads are tak­ing home a month­ly pack­age of over $100,000 and in some cas­es more, when you add bonus­es like hous­ing al­lowance."