KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Jobs at Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lim­it­ed could be un­der threat as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the state-owned TSTT sub­sidiary may be wound up, pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion ex­pect­ed to be­gin in the com­ing months.

The de­vel­op­ment comes about a month af­ter a ma­jor lead­er­ship shake-up at Am­plia, when Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Shawn Clarke was ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect by the TSTT board. Clarke had served in the post since 2024.

Padarath said there are con­cerns over du­pli­ca­tion of func­tions be­tween Am­plia and its par­ent com­pa­ny, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), and that the sub­sidiary’s op­er­a­tions could even­tu­al­ly be ab­sorbed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the launch of TSTT’s Fu­ture Lead­ers In­tern­ship Pro­gramme at SB­SC, Champs Fleurs yes­ter­day, the Min­is­ter said no fi­nal de­ci­sion has been tak­en.

“What I’ve been ad­vised is du­pli­ca­tion in terms of some of the things that Am­plia is do­ing. I have asked TSTT to start look­ing at whether or not we can sub­sume where we have Am­plia em­ploy­ees. Should the Gov­ern­ment take the po­si­tion that we are go­ing to ask Am­plia, that de­ci­sion has not been tak­en. I am wait­ing for the fi­nan­cials and I’m wait­ing for that in­ves­ti­ga­tor to go in to de­ter­mine what is the sta­tus of the com­pa­ny be­cause there’s a lot of du­pli­ca­tion in ef­forts and there­fore whether we can sub­sume both in­to each oth­er and make it work,” he said.

Padarath al­so raised ques­tions about Am­plia’s 2017 ac­qui­si­tion, de­scrib­ing it as an area re­quir­ing ur­gent scruti­ny.

“We have to de­ter­mine in whose pock­ets did any­body’s mon­ey go in­to? Who was the spe­cial in­ter­est that cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion where a com­pa­ny val­ued at just over $20 mil­lion was pur­chased at $277 mil­lion? So first, we have to get to the bot­tom of that. Be­cause when it was asked of the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, both the then Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and then Prime Min­is­ter claimed that they had no knowl­edge about it. There­fore, we must de­ter­mine who put TSTT in this sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

The Min­is­ter added that Am­plia has be­come a sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial bur­den on TSTT, and said the planned probe will seek to clar­i­fy how the ac­qui­si­tion was ap­proved.

“We will be ap­point­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tor to de­ter­mine how a com­pa­ny val­ued at just over TT$20 mil­lion was pur­chased by TSTT for over $277 mil­lion. There­after, TSTT was forced to give Am­plia a loan of TT$300 mil­lion,” he said.

Padarath said he is push­ing for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be com­plet­ed with­in a rel­a­tive­ly short time­frame.

“I’ve asked them to do it in the short­est pos­si­ble time. I am hop­ing that you’re look­ing at a time frame of about three months. They are putting to­geth­er the terms of ref­er­ence for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. How­ev­er, it may go be­yond three months, but I’m hope­ful it can stay with­in that time frame,” he said.

The pos­si­ble re­struc­tur­ing has raised con­cern among work­ers and unions.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, for­mer Am­plia head Lisa Agard said she had no rec­ol­lec­tion of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ac­qui­si­tion and would await the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

At­tempts to reach for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) has al­so raised con­cerns about po­ten­tial job loss­es if Am­plia’s op­er­a­tions are merged in­to TSTT.

CWU Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joanne Ogeer said the de­vel­op­ments are wor­ry­ing and could have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for staff.

“If you are speak­ing about sub­sum­ing some of the op­er­a­tions, what is go­ing to hap­pen with the ex­tra head count? Are they go­ing to be sent home? We are ask­ing what is Am­plia’s head count? How many per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees do they have and what is the plan for tem­po­rary work­ers at Am­plia? We do not sup­port the haem­or­rhage that Am­plia has brought on TSTT, but more im­por­tant­ly, job loss at any point is wor­ry­ing for any trade union,” she said.

Ogeer is urg­ing Am­plia work­ers to con­sid­er join­ing the union, and said the CWU al­so ex­pects clar­i­ty on out­stand­ing is­sues in­clud­ing back­pay for TSTT work­ers.

She not­ed that TSTT has re­cent­ly re­port­ed prof­its, which the Min­is­ter has de­scribed as the first sig­nif­i­cant gain in 11 years.

TSTT has un­der­gone mul­ti­ple rounds of re­struc­tur­ing in re­cent years, in­clud­ing the re­trench­ment of 468 work­ers three years ago amid falling rev­enues from tra­di­tion­al ser­vices. At the time, Agard said the re­struc­tur­ing saved the com­pa­ny ap­prox­i­mate­ly $160 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

Padarath said fur­ther trans­for­ma­tion is now planned, as TSTT seeks to tran­si­tion from a tra­di­tion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider in­to a tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven com­pa­ny.

“We are tak­ing a lot clos­er look at the op­er­a­tions of TSTT to bring the vi­sion and the po­ten­tial of the com­pa­ny to fruition. Chang­ing it from a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions-based com­pa­ny to a tech­nol­o­gy-based com­pa­ny. That would al­low us to in­vest in da­ta cen­tres, new ar­eas of tech­nol­o­gy, pos­si­bly man­u­fac­tur­ing. These things would not hap­pen to­mor­row, I know that, but the ground­work has to be done now,” he said.

He added that the Gov­ern­ment is ex­plor­ing part­ner­ships with in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing dis­cus­sions with Ama­zon and en­gage­ment with the In­di­an gov­ern­ment on tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion and po­ten­tial pub­lic-pri­vate or gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment arrange­ments.

Padarath al­so said he is await­ing le­gal ad­vice to ta­ble a TSTT cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent re­port in Par­lia­ment in the near fu­ture.

Agard de­clined to com­ment on that is­sue, while the CWU said it wel­comes greater trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment.