Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has de­fend­ed state-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) against re­cent al­le­ga­tions by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU), dis­miss­ing the claims as “week­ly bo­geys that are nei­ther fac­tu­al nor co­her­ent.”

Speak­ing hours af­ter the union’s me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Padarath said the union’s re­peat­ed crit­i­cisms lacked ev­i­dence and sub­stance.

“These tirades by the CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al, Joanne Ogeer, are most­ly cloud­ed in mau­vaise langue and per­son­al in­sults, with­out any ba­sis or ev­i­dence,” he said.

One of the union’s prin­ci­pal con­cerns re­lates to Mar­itime and whether the com­pa­ny could re­ceive pref­er­en­tial treat­ment in mat­ters in­volv­ing TSTT’s fi­nances.

Padarath ac­knowl­edged that TSTT chair­man Kern Dass is em­ployed by Mar­itime but stressed that this does not give the com­pa­ny any role in TSTT’s fi­nan­cial af­fairs.

He ac­cused in­di­vid­u­als both in­side and out­side TSTT of at­tempt­ing to pre­serve the sta­tus quo by dis­cred­it­ing the chair­man.

“Mar­itime has ab­solute­ly no in­volve­ment in the fi­nan­cial af­fairs of TSTT. There is a con­sis­tent at­tempt by those col­lud­ing in­side and out­side TSTT to dis­cred­it and bring the chair­man in­to dis­re­pute be­cause he is dis­rupt­ing the self-serv­ing in­ter­ests of a se­lect few with­in the com­pa­ny, a sit­u­a­tion that has per­sist­ed for years,” Padarath said.

The min­is­ter main­tained that ma­jor changes are nec­es­sary at TSTT and said the Gov­ern­ment would not con­tin­ue what he de­scribed as the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ap­proach.

“We are not go­ing to con­tin­ue the PNM’s ap­proach of pro­mot­ing in­com­pe­tence, poor work eth­ic and a free-for-all at­ti­tude. If the union is hap­py with that, I am not. This ap­proach is what has the com­pa­ny in the sit­u­a­tion we found it in,” he said.

Padarath al­so crit­i­cised the union for fo­cus­ing on im­me­di­ate con­cerns rather than the com­pa­ny’s long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“As the min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for TSTT, I will not back down from the union,” he added.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns raised about re­cent­ly ap­point­ed cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Vive­ka Par­gass, Padarath said she ap­peared to be fac­ing sim­i­lar at­tacks be­cause she had raised is­sues in­volv­ing al­leged breach­es by for­mer se­nior staff mem­bers.

“Like Mr Dass, there ap­pears to be a con­ve­nient at­tack on the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, who raised se­ri­ous is­sues re­gard­ing al­leged breach­es in­volv­ing for­mer se­nior staff mem­bers of the com­pa­ny,” Padarath said.

The min­is­ter al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that Par­gass re­ceived any pref­er­en­tial treat­ment in se­cur­ing the po­si­tion.

“No min­is­ter or mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment has spo­ken to me about the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary at TSTT. I am aware that she went through an in­ter­view process and that the po­si­tion was pub­licly ad­ver­tised. I am al­so aware that she pre­vi­ous­ly served as cor­po­rate sec­re­tary at the HDC,” he said.

The CWU has al­so ques­tioned the pro­posed re­cruit­ment of a chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer.

Padarath said he had been ad­vised by the chair­man that TSTT’s mar­ket­ing de­part­ment has been un­der­staffed for some time and that ef­forts are now un­der­way to fill key po­si­tions.

“As far as I am aware, no one can promise any­one a job at TSTT. How­ev­er, any­one can make out­landish state­ments geared to­ward dam­ag­ing the names and rep­u­ta­tions of in­di­vid­u­als,” he said.

The min­is­ter fur­ther ac­cused the union of sup­port­ing too many “square pegs in round holes,” ar­gu­ing that TSTT can on­ly sur­vive and pros­per if the nec­es­sary re­forms are im­ple­ment­ed.