Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Kery­wn Gar­cia, SC, the hus­band of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, has been ap­point­ed by Massy to in­ves­ti­gate the claims made by its for­mer ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter about its ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the two-mem­ber in­ves­ti­ga­tions team in­cludes at­tor­ney Vish­ma Jais­ingh.

Last month, Gar­cia be­came the cen­tre of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment’s (JTUM) ire af­ter it al­leged, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence, that there may be a pos­si­ble con­flict of in­ter­est in a mat­ter he had be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court and the non-re­new­al of the con­tract of for­mer In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix. Gar­cia nev­er re­spond­ed to queries by the Sun­day Guardian on this mat­ter.

Mean­while, Massy was ini­tial­ly do­ing two in­ves­ti­ga­tions—one in­to Parisot-Pot­ter’s con­duct at the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and an­oth­er in­to her 13-page let­ter of con­cern which she sub­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive Ger­vase Warn­er about the lead­er­ship pro­gramme.

How­ev­er, her res­ig­na­tion on De­cem­ber 27 negat­ed the need for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her con­duct.

Af­ter Massy ap­point­ed Gar­cia, it halt­ed its ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gramme with Flori­da-based Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing, run by a cou­ple—Paul Dominguez and In­di­ra Di­al-Dominguez.

Last week, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Parisot-Pot­ter said that to date, she has not been con­tact­ed to take part in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion even though her lawyer had writ­ten to Massy ex­press­ing her will­ing­ness to do so.

“It is now al­most six weeks since I sub­mit­ted the 13-page doc­u­ment to the CEO and I have had no dis­cus­sion on many of the con­cerns I raised in my ca­pac­i­ty as (the Gen­er­al Coun­sel) and an em­ploy­ee,” she had said.

Parisot-Pot­ter said her mis­giv­ings about the pro­gramme stemmed from her hav­ing to do it.

“I had to do the pro­gramme. I did not have a choice. I was clear­ly and re­peat­ed­ly told that it was a con­di­tion for con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ty by se­nior mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment team—I can­not move for­ward with Massy with­out do­ing this pro­gramme.

“The Del­phi ex­pe­ri­ence was and is a se­ri­ous mat­ter in its vi­o­la­tions of my re­li­gious be­liefs and the be­liefs of oth­ers, but Del­phi in it­self was not the prob­lem. Del­phi is symp­to­matic of the re­al is­sues.

“The prob­lem is that the con­tract­ing and en­forced de­ploy­ment of Del­phi was symp­to­matic of a flawed sys­tem of gov­er­nance and fidu­cia­ry over­sight—is­sues I re­peat­ed­ly raised. In some cas­es, for which I was at­tacked, and told that I was not a leader be­cause I didn’t con­form,” she said.

“It has been and it is my pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion, that this mat­ter and the oth­ers I raised are of ques­tion­able eth­i­cal prac­tices and a very frag­ile gov­er­nance sys­tem that is in dire need of ur­gent re­pair,” she had told the Sun­day Guardian last week.

On De­cem­ber 18, at the com­pa­ny’s 100th an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, Parisot-Pot­ter took to the floor dur­ing the ques­tion and an­swer pe­ri­od and voiced con­cerns about the con­glom­er­ate’s ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship con­sul­tant.

Parisot-Pot­ter claimed that Del­phi en­gages in bizarre rit­u­als for ex­ec­u­tives, that their lead­er­ship pro­gramme is a drain of scarce for­eign ex­change and that the cou­ple lead­ing the pro­gramme ap­pear to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive team.

She told the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors, chaired by Robert Ri­ley, that she had writ­ten to Warn­er but re­ceived no com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the mat­ter so she was com­pelled to raise the mat­ter at the AGM.

Massy’s board of di­rec­tors sub­se­quent­ly is­sued a state­ment dis­miss­ing her claims as “un­true” and “scan­dalous” and said it was ap­palled by her con­duct and had ini­ti­at­ed a dis­ci­pli­nary process against her du­ties as the gen­er­al coun­sel to the com­pa­ny and “will fol­low due process to de­ter­mine how this should be han­dled re­spon­si­bly yet de­ci­sive­ly.”

Parisot-Pot­ter was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave un­til Jan­u­ary 12 but she re­signed on De­cem­ber 27 with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

“Giv­en the se­ri­ous na­ture of the fidu­cia­ry and gov­er­nance con­cerns I had brought to the com­pa­ny’s at­ten­tion, it would have been un­con­scionable for me to con­tin­ue to serve as the gen­er­al coun­sel and of­fi­cer with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for busi­ness in­tegri­ty with­out com­pro­mis­ing my per­son­al in­tegri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty,” she had told the Sun­day Guardian.

Parisot-Pot­ter had said that her role as gen­er­al coun­sel was to the share­hold­ers and she was not the lawyer to the chief ex­ec­u­tive of the or­gan­i­sa­tion while she did re­port to him.

“In my role as gen­er­al coun­sel of a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny, I held a fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to safe­guard and pro­tect the in­ter­ests of our share­hold­ers,” she had said.

At that time, Warn­er said that many of the group’s lead­ers and some board mem­bers had at­tend­ed the pro­gramme and that Parisot-Pot­ter would not be the first ex­ec­u­tive who has had dif­fi­cul­ty in a pro­gramme like this.

“We think a part of our se­cret at Massy is that we are will­ing to do this kind of work as lead­ers. It is the kind of work that we have done that al­lows us to have the re­sults the com­pa­ny shows. That is be­cause cul­ture eats strat­e­gy for break­fast,” he had said and added that build­ing con­nec­tion and trust with oth­er lead­ers, em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties is a big part of Massy’s suc­cess.

Massy memo

In a memo sent to all staff last Thurs­day, Warn­er sought to up­date the com­pa­ny on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Our group has a long-stand­ing rep­u­ta­tion for in­tegri­ty and good gov­er­nance. It is a rep­u­ta­tion of which we are proud and one that we feel a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to up­hold. As a re­sult of that, the Board of Di­rec­tors of Massy Hold­ings Ltd (MHL) has ap­point­ed an in­de­pen­dent, ex­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tor to con­duct a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the re­cent al­le­ga­tions made by our for­mer Group Gen­er­al Coun­sel Mrs An­gelique Parisot-Pot­ter.

“This in­ves­ti­ga­tion has com­menced, and the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team will re­port to the MHL Board through Ms Luisa Lafau­rie Rivera, who is an in­de­pen­dent non-ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, and Chair­per­son of the Board’s Gov­er­nance, Nom­i­na­tion and Re­mu­ner­a­tion Com­mit­tee. This struc­ture is in­tend­ed to en­sure the in­de­pen­dence of their in­ves­ti­ga­tion and re­port­ing; and will pro­vide over­sight for any cor­rec­tive ac­tion or rec­om­men­da­tions aris­ing out of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“While we would hope for an ex­pe­di­tious con­clu­sion to their in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Board and Ex­ec­u­tives are com­mit­ted to al­low­ing the team, the time and space that they deem nec­es­sary, to do their work.

“While it would not be ap­pro­pri­ate to dis­cuss an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we are com­mit­ted to keep­ing you in­formed and up to date on any salient de­vel­op­ments as and when we are able to do so. We thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port and your con­fi­dence in our Group and its com­mit­ment to our Val­ues,” the memo said.