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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Five weeks after chairman walks over board dispute: CDA manager quits

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20161003

Five weeks af­ter An­tho­ny Pierre re­signed as chair­man of Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA), the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the State-owned com­pa­ny has al­so quit.On Fri­day, Michael Ana­tol, who was on a six-month pro­ba­tion­ary pe­ri­od with the CDA, sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion to act­ing chair­man Nar­ine Lutch­me­di­al.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Lutch­me­di­al said Ana­tol re­lin­quished his po­si­tion af­ter serv­ing for three months and one week.

"We were do­ing an as­sess­ment in­to his per­for­mance. Then he sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion. From the tone of his res­ig­na­tion he wants to part ways," Lutch­me­di­al said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ana­tol said he pre­ferred not to com­ment since his res­ig­na­tion had not been ac­cept­ed by the board.Pierre re­signed in Au­gust af­ter the board said he act­ed with­out its ap­proval when he is­sued let­ters of com­fort to two ten­ants whose leas­es the CDA di­rec­tors had deemed il­le­gal.

Lutch­me­di­al con­firmed yes­ter­day that the board would have to ac­cept or re­ject Ana­tol's res­ig­na­tion when they next meet.

If the board ac­cepts Ana­tol's res­ig­na­tion, Lutch­me­di­al said the CDA would have to re­tain the ser­vices of an em­ploy­ment agency to se­lect a new gen­er­al man­ag­er. Should the board re­ject the res­ig­na­tion, Lutch­me­di­al said Ana­tol would have to serve out his pro­ba­tion­ary pe­ri­od "then we would as­sess his per­for­mance and then we move from there."

But Lutch­me­di­al said he has the great­est re­spect for Ana­tol.

"I know he was try­ing his best. It is a lot of things down there that some­times does not add up equal," Lutch­me­di­al said. He said Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, un­der whose purview CDA falls, was in­formed of Ana­tol's de­ci­sion.

"I am sor­ry that some peo­ple are re­sign­ing. It's very un­for­tu­nate that this con­vul­sion is tak­ing place, it's un­for­tu­nate for the coun­try," Lutch­me­di­al said.

Asked if there was any rift or dif­fer­ences be­tween the board and Ana­tol, Lutch­me­di­al shied away from an­swer­ing.

Ex­its not look­ing good

Told that Ana­tol's res­ig­na­tion gives the im­pres­sion that all was not right in CDA, Lutch­me­di­al said "you might be right about that. But it's not my com­ment to make."

Lutch­me­di­al ad­mit­ted a lot of things were go­ing on in CDA that was "not look­ing good." He said he was wor­ried with the "fall-out" with em­ploy­ees.

"I am con­cerned about all of that. It is not some­thing I like that is hap­pen­ing," he said. De­spite the de­par­ture of Pierre, Lutch­me­di­al said the board has re­mained strong and was look­ing to be­come self suf­fi­cient, prof­itable and to max­imise the full po­ten­tial of the 12,000 acres of land CDA con­trols.

Lutch­me­di­al ad­mit­ted that he has been try­ing to keep things to­geth­er with­out the con­tro­ver­sy. He said if there was a price to pay po­lit­i­cal­ly "I would do the ho­n­ourable thing and re­sign too."

On the CDA leas­es is­sued to ten­ants which were deemed il­le­gal, Lutch­me­di­al said that mat­ter has since been put in the hands of its at­tor­ney Mar­tin Daly, SC, for a le­gal opin­ion.


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