Brent Pin­heiro 

Re­porter

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt 

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has de­nied claims that CEO Garvin Med­era has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave. The air­line made the com­ment af­ter a mes­sage, ti­tled “Caribbean Air­lines An­nounces Lead­er­ship Tran­si­tion and Sta­bil­i­ty and Growth Strat­e­gy,” be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line. The mes­sage claimed that Med­era had been “placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, pend­ing the out­come of an in­ter­nal re­view.” The mes­sage al­so claimed the air­line’s Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer, Nir­mala Ra­mai, would take over as act­ing CEO un­til fur­ther no­tice.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease last evening, CAL sought to de­bunk the claims, say­ing the in­for­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ing was “false.” It added that the in­for­ma­tion in the re­lease did not come from ei­ther Caribbean Air­lines or any oth­er “au­tho­rised source.”

Med­era has been the CAL CEO since Oc­to­ber 10th, 2017. 

On Au­gust 12th, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to the air­line’s man­age­ment, urg­ing them “sort out the mess” in two years or find a new job. She made the com­ment af­ter claim­ing the com­pa­ny had been op­er­at­ing in the red and the pre­vi­ous board had been ly­ing to the coun­try about its eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. Since then, there have been sev­er­al changes to the com­pa­ny’s up­per man­age­ment. This in­clud­ed Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer Varuna Kuars­ingh be­ing sent on leave by the new CAL board, head­ed by Rey­na Kow­lessar.