RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP) has de­nied al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion lev­elled by the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU), fol­low­ing a protest out­side the home of NP Chair­man Sahid Ho­sein on Sat­ur­day.

The OW­TU, led by Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get, staged the demon­stra­tion to high­light their con­cerns, but the NP’s Board of Di­rec­tors has is­sued a strong re­but­tal de­fend­ing their ac­tions and pro­ce­dures.

In a de­tailed press re­lease, NP em­pha­sised their re­spect for the OW­TU, not­ing the chair­man’s own his­to­ry with the union.

“Whilst the Board of Di­rec­tors has tremen­dous re­spect for the OW­TU as an in­sti­tu­tion, the chair­man hav­ing been a mem­ber and branch of­fi­cer as a young man, the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of this mat­ter, as has been the case with oth­er mat­ters in the re­cent past, forces the Board of Di­rec­tors to re­spond pub­licly on be­half of NP and its em­ploy­ees.”

The board stat­ed that Chair­man Ho­sein main­tains an open-door pol­i­cy and meets with any­one re­quest­ing a meet­ing. “NP’s Board has met on two oc­ca­sions with the Ex­ec­u­tive of the OW­TU, ex­plain­ing what was hap­pen­ing and com­mit­ting it­self to an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­lowed by a foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion by an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rep­utable and in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty.” The re­lease de­tailed the find­ings of these in­ves­ti­ga­tions, which re­vealed a tech­ni­cal glitch that af­fect­ed per­for­mance scores.

“The in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion was over­seen by NP’s se­nior IT per­son­nel and the ex­ter­nal provider of the IT plat­form, which iden­ti­fied a tech­ni­cal glitch in the sys­tem that per­mit­ted a du­al­i­ty of scores due to an in­cor­rect al­go­rithm in use at the time. This meant that when the sys­tem even­tu­al­ly self-cor­rect­ed, the scores of eight per­sons were prop­er­ly re­aligned. The scores of the man­ag­er in ques­tion, an­oth­er man­ag­er, and six oth­er em­ploy­ees were so im­pact­ed. A foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty cor­rob­o­rat­ed this find­ing,” the board stat­ed.

Ad­dress­ing the whistle­blow­er’s claims, NP de­nied any dis­missal and la­belled the ac­cu­sa­tion as dis­hon­est. “In­ci­den­tal­ly, no whistle­blow­er has been dis­missed. To say so is plain­ly dis­hon­est.”

The board al­so stood firm­ly be­hind the re­in­stat­ed man­ag­er, com­mend­ing her con­tri­bu­tions to the com­pa­ny.

“Hav­ing worked close­ly with the man­ag­er in ques­tion for the past three years, the board con­tin­ues to be of the view that, giv­en the ef­forts made by the per­son to nor­malise HR prac­tices at NP and cre­ate a just and prop­er work en­vi­ron­ment for all em­ploy­ees, the man­ag­er’s con­tract should be re­newed for a fur­ther pe­ri­od. This was unan­i­mous­ly en­dorsed by all mem­bers of the board.”

The state­ment al­so dis­missed claims of favouritism and cor­rup­tion, high­light­ing the board’s com­mit­ment to in­tegri­ty and fair­ness.

“As to con­trac­tors get­ting a free pass, noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. Nei­ther the chair­man nor the Board of Di­rec­tors have any ‘con­trac­tor friends’ nor do we fa­cil­i­tate any. It can be said with ut­most con­fi­dence that the con­duct of NP’s Board when it comes to in­tegri­ty, fair play, and jus­tice is sec­ond to none.”

It al­so de­nied that the chair­man was “a law un­to him­self.”

“That it­self is a fal­la­cy, as all de­ci­sions, es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant ones, are unan­i­mous­ly car­ried out and there is a con­stant ex­change of views with man­age­ment at com­mit­tee and board meet­ings,” the board said.

Mean­while, OW­TU Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get de­fend­ed the union’s de­ci­sion to protest on Sat­ur­day at Ho­sein’s res­i­dence, cit­ing the mis­treat­ment of NP work­ers. “We are ex­er­cis­ing our right as work­ers and as a trade union rep­re­sent­ing the NP work­ers, the right to pick­et­ing,” he said.

Ro­get de­tailed how a whistle­blow­er had raised al­le­ga­tions against a high-rank­ing NP of­fi­cial for ma­nip­u­lat­ing her own per­for­mance score but was sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed in Oc­to­ber.

De­spite the in­ter­nal and foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Ro­get ques­tioned the thor­ough­ness and im­par­tial­i­ty of the process. “The union was not part of that in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We would have liked to see her per­for­mance pri­or prop­er­ly well ex­am­ined; every­where this per­son goes, there is a trail of con­fu­sion that fol­lows her.”

Ro­get sug­gest­ed pos­si­ble nepo­tism, point­ing to shared sur­names be­tween the board of­fi­cial and the man­ag­er.