Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Dhano Sookoo, pres­i­dent of the Agri­cul­ture So­ci­ety of T&T (ASTT), has to pay $321,653 to the for­mer vice pres­i­dent, Jen­son Alexan­der, and board mem­ber, Kr­ishen­dath Sook­nanan. Since last year a feud be­tween the pres­i­dent and some of the for­mer and present board mem­bers had de­vel­oped where al­le­ga­tions were lev­elled against each par­ty. Some of those is­sues re­sult­ed in sev­er­al court mat­ters.

One such mat­ter was where Sook­nanan and Alexan­der filed an in­junc­tion to stop Sookoo from at­tempt­ing to hold il­le­gal gen­er­al elec­tions in Ju­ly 2011. The Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety Act, Chap­ter 63:01 stip­u­lates that the com­mit­tee must be elect­ed at the an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing in Jan­u­ary of each year. Sook­nanan and Alexan­der won the case and they were giv­en the of­fi­cial judg­ment on April 23, 2012, which ruled that the cost of $321,653 be paid by the re­spon­dents, who are Dhano Sookoo and ASTT.

"This is the cost Sookoo has caused the ASTT be­cause she did not lis­ten to the man­age­ment com­mit­tee in 2011. You can­not call an elec­tion af­ter the com­mit­tee was elect­ed in six months," Alexan­der said in an in­ter­view on Wednes­day. Alexan­der and Sook­nanan were among the six board mem­bers who Sookoo sus­pend­ed last year.

Sookoo ac­cused the six mem­bers of de­fraud­ing the so­ci­ety of $100,000. This mon­ey was ap­proved by the six mem­bers for out­stand­ing salaries and CO­LA owed to ASTT's work­ers in the sum of $90,069.95. Alexan­der said dur­ing a 2011 meet­ing with the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee, chaired by Eliz­a­beth Mo­hammed-Ali, they were in their le­gal right to call the meet­ing and ap­prove the pay­ment. This mat­ter is al­so be­fore the court. Oth­er is­sues be­fore the courts are:

• Sookoo against the sus­pend­ed six mem­bers for non-pay­ment of salaries be­tween the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2011 to Jan­u­ary 2012. The first mat­ter was called on Ju­ly 21, 2011, the sec­ond hear­ing is No­vem­ber 19.

• Re­fusal by the pres­i­dent to present Alexan­der with doc­u­ments/min­utes on ASTT's op­er­a­tions, which he re­quest­ed un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. Court date-Sep­tem­ber 26.

More le­gal bat­tles

In March, Alexan­der said he re­quest­ed the doc­u­ments be­cause he un­der­stood that they were again try­ing to ex­pel him from ASTT. "If such ac­tions are tak­en to ex­pel me, I will be forced again to take le­gal ac­tion against each mem­ber of the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee, who has no ev­i­dence and au­thor­i­ty to ex­pel me," Alexan­der said. "I am con­fi­dent that we are go­ing to win all of our cas­es be­cause we did noth­ing wrong."

Alexan­der said he re­quest­ed the ASTT's Au­gust 20 au­dit re­port from the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­istry to de­ter­mine whether they de­fraud­ed the So­ci­ety. "When this re­port clears us, we will pur­sue le­gal ac­tions for defama­tion of char­ac­ter and if our le­gal fee of $321,653 is not paid, we will have no choice but to levy against the so­ci­ety." "If a leader of such an or­gan­i­sa­tion as ASTT has led farm­ers in the wrong path for so long, she is not fit to lead."