Gail Alexan­der

The PNM Gov­ern­ment has re­in­stat­ed Pro­fes­sor Ken­neth Julien as head of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) and al­so ap­point­ed NH In­ter­na­tion­al (Caribbean) ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Emile Elias as chair­man of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie an­nounced that at yes­ter­day's week­ly Gov­ern­ment press con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

Julien, of­ten de­scribed as the "en­er­gy czar", due to his role in the de­vel­op­ment of Pt Lisas, now re­turns to the helm of the en­ti­ty where he was UTT pres­i­dent un­der Patrick Man­ning's PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He had been re­placed at UTT by Cur­tis Man­choon af­ter the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice.

Le­gal pro­ceed­ings were lat­er in­sti­tut­ed against Julien and four oth­er for­mer UTT board mem­bers seek­ing to re­cov­er more than $11.4 mil­lion which the State claimed was lost be­cause of al­leged breach of fidu­cia­ry du­ty and fail­ure to ex­er­cise due dili­gence.

This al­leged­ly con­cerned the sub-leas­ing of the uni­ver­si­ty's Aripo guest house with Con­sol­i­dat­ed Ser­vices Ltd for a five-year re­new­able lease at a month­ly rental of $50,000, as well as ac­com­mo­dat­ing Rev Ju­liana Pe­na, the spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er to for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

In Ju­ly, how­ev­er, the State dis­con­tin­ued the pro­ceed­ings and the case re­port­ed­ly col­lapsed.

The ap­point­ment of Julien and Elias yes­ter­day elicit­ed mixed views from for­mer PP min­is­ters Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Dr Tim Gopeesingh, now Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

But Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Cuffie, re­ply­ing to me­dia queries about Julien's re­in­state­ment, said of the le­gal is­sues:

"He (Julien) came out of that with his in­tegri­ty and rep­u­ta­tion in­tact. The is­sues in the court case had floun­dered and based on tes­ti­mo­ny, the ac­tion was not brought against him by UTT but in­sti­gat­ed by the then (PP's) at­tor­ney gen­er­al.

"Dr Julien is a well ac­knowl­edged ed­u­ca­tor and some­one who has done great ser­vice to T&T."

Last month, Gov­ern­ment al­so ap­point­ed Julien to its Stand­ing En­er­gy Com­mit­tee.

Oth­er mem­bers of the UTT board an­nounced yes­ter­day are pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert, Shiv­an Ojah-Ma­haraj, Pro­fes­sor Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, Marslyn Jack, Nico­lette Moore, Win­ston Lal­la and two oth­ers to be ap­point­ed.

Im­bert, an en­gi­neer­ing ex­pert and UWI lec­tur­er, is the un­cle of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert

Ojah Ma­haraj, niece of for­mer PNM To­co-San­gre Grande MP In­dra Ojah-Ma­haraj Sinanan and a rel­a­tive of PNM deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan, had been a PNM nom­i­nee for To­co/San­gre Grande in 2010.

Liv­er­pool, bet­ter known as Chalk­dust, is a well known ed­u­ca­tor.

On the TSTT board along with Elias are Ian Nar­ine, Wen­dell Berkley, Kim­ber­ly Der­ri­ah and Ju­dith So­bion.

Berkley is PNM's To­ba­go East chair­man. So­bion has an ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment back­ground. Nar­ine is in as­set man­age­ment.

Cuffie said Elias was a well known busi­ness­man and has pro­mot­ed the na­tion­al in­ter­est through the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) and oth­er en­ti­ties in which he has been in­volved, in­clud­ing the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion.

He said Elias had a re­sume that spoke to his com­mit­ment in T&T and pos­sessed busi­ness acu­men and it was based on that he was ap­point­ed.

Cuffie al­so an­nounced Sha­heed Ho­sein to chair the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) board.

Oth­er mem­bers are Myr­na Per­sad, Mar­cus Knag­gs, David Alexan­der, Quin­cy Trim, Na­dine Nab­bie. Knag­gs is a busi­ness ex­ec­u­tive who has been in­volved with the T&T En­er­gy Guide

Al­so an­nounced was Mar­vin John­cil­la, a hu­man re­sources spe­cial­ist, to head the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board, Oth­er mem­bers are Win­field Quam­i­na, Kris­tine Lee King and Ria Joseph.

Gov­ern­ment al­so ap­point­ed south­ern busi­ness­man Im­ti­az Ahamed to chair the E-Tech Board. Oth­er mem­bers are Judy Ramjohn, Er­ic Lewis, Arnold de Four, Ran­dall Karim and Kelvon Mor­ris,

Al­so ap­point­ed was Ul­ric Warn­er to head the Na­tion­al Quar­ries board. Oth­er board mem­bers are Shaz­ad Mo­hammed, Wan­da Clarke, Roger Ra­jan and Dons Wait­he.

op­po­si­tion com­ments

For­mer PP min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan com­ment­ing on Julien's re­in­state­ment, said:

"It's clear the old PNM guard has come back to take over the af­fairs of T&T. The dis­play of youth by the PNM was just a mas­quer­ade and you are now see­ing the re­al PNM pow­er bro­kers emerg­ing to take over.

"So clear­ly we are in for rep­e­ti­tion, more of the same-old, same-old. We warned T&T this would take place if the PNM won gov­ern­ment and it's com­ing to pass.

"We are al­so see­ing oth­er things we warned about hap­pen­ing, job loss. One steel com­pa­ny sent home al­most 300 work­ers this week and we are al­so see­ing 'cleans­ing' oc­cur­ring in URP where de­feat­ed PNM can­di­dates are tak­ing up posts."

On the ap­point­ment of Elias to TSTT, Ram­bachan added: "Mr Elias has been known as a PNM sym­pa­this­er and there's no rea­son why he shouldn't be re­ward­ed for this."

How­ev­er, his col­league, for­mer min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh hailed the ap­point­ment of Elias as a "great move."

Gopeesingh added: "I nev­er sup­port­ed the idea of a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er be­ing chair­man of TSTT and I have made state­ments to that ef­fect.

"This is a com­pa­ny that need­ed great help and I think Mr Elias has great man­age­ment ca­pac­i­ty to change things."