News Desk

Mere days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on the man­age­ment of Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) to “sort out the mess” at the air­line, one of the air­line’s top ex­ec­u­tives has been sus­pend­ed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer Varuna Kuars­ingh was sent on leave a few days ago by the new CAL board, head­ed by Rey­na Kow­lessar. Kuars­ingh has been with the com­pa­ny for over two years. Speak­ing dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Mon­day Night Re­port on Au­gust 11, the Prime Min­is­ter told sup­port­ers gath­ered at Cam­den Hall, Cou­va, that the air­line had not sub­mit­ted au­dit­ed fi­nan­cials for the last nine years.

The CFO is re­spon­si­ble for the sub­mis­sion of fi­nan­cial re­ports, but Guardian Me­dia could not con­firm if the com­pa­ny’s fail­ure to pro­duce fi­nan­cials over the past cou­ple of years was the rea­son for Kuars­ingh’s sus­pen­sion. Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to CAL chair­man Kow­lessar yes­ter­day, but there was no re­sponse. Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to CAL’s line min­is­ter, Dave Tan­coo, for a com­ment on the lat­est de­vel­op­ment, but he redi­rect­ed the ques­tions to CAL, say­ing, “This Min­is­ter of Fi­nance does not get in­volved in the day-to-day or ad­min­is­tra­tive op­er­a­tions of CAL or any oth­er boards.”

In her Au­gust 11th speech, the Prime Min­is­ter is­sued a warn­ing to CAL’s man­age­ment.

She said, “I am giv­ing the man­age­ment of Caribbean Air­lines two years max. They have to sort out the mess. Oth­er­wise, every­one there will have to look for a new job.”

How­ev­er, this state­ment sparked con­cern among CAL work­ers, prompt­ing their rep­re­sent­ing unions, the Avi­a­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA), to write to Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Au­gust 14th re­quest­ing an ur­gent meet­ing. The unions want, among oth­er things, clar­i­ty on the fu­ture of the air­line.

Sub­se­quent so­cial me­dia re­ports of work­ers in CAL’s fi­nance de­part­ment be­ing ei­ther fired or ear­marked for dis­missal did lit­tle to al­lay work­ers’ fears. How­ev­er, ACAWU, which is the union un­der which the fi­nance de­part­ment falls, yes­ter­day de­nied work­ers had been fired.

ACAWU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Nwan­nia Sorzano told Guardian Me­dia, “This in­for­ma­tion is new to us, as none of our mem­bers has re­port­ed such oc­cur­rences”.

As for the unions’ re­quest to meet with the PM, Sorzano said, “We are ea­ger­ly look­ing for­ward to an au­di­ence with the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to clar­i­fy con­cerns raised with us by the mem­bers and to see how we can con­tribute to a suc­cess­ful CAL.”