Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Avinash Ma­hara­jh says the union will be re­spond­ing to the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al, who has re­fused to ad­dress 13 com­plaints against him. 

In a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia, Ma­hara­jh said the PSA sought to meet with Din­di­al to dis­cuss the com­plaints, but he has re­fused to meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion. He added that the po­si­tion tak­en by Din­di­al had not ad­dressed the con­cerns raised by the work­ers. 

In a let­ter to Ma­hara­jh dat­ed June 18, Din­di­al wrote that the claims made against him were all made anony­mous­ly, deny­ing him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to face his ac­cuser(s). He said that the com­mon thread in the 13 com­plaints against him seemed to be re­sis­tance to ad­her­ence to rules, reg­u­la­tions, poli­cies, and ac­cept­able prac­tices. 

He wrote, “It would ap­pear that the per­sons who have ex­pressed these con­cerns are averse to be­ing held ac­count­able and would like to do as they please with im­puni­ty. As the CPO and the em­ploy­er, as iden­ti­fied in the statute, who is the au­thor of the var­i­ous poli­cies, terms and con­di­tions, it is there­fore my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to com­ply with same and en­sure that my staff al­so com­ply with same.” 

Last month, Din­di­al promised to meet with Ma­hara­jh on al­le­ga­tions that he was abus­ing his pow­er. The claim came months af­ter staff wrote to the union ac­cus­ing Din­di­al, a re­tired De­fence Force of­fi­cer, of run­ning the CPO’s of­fice “like a boot camp.” 

Ma­hara­jh said the em­ploy­ees com­plain­ing about Din­di­al’s at­ti­tude in­clud­ed hu­man re­source and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fi­cers versed in work-re­lat­ed best prac­tices. 

“These pub­lic of­fi­cers, which in­clude the Hu­man Re­source ad­vis­ers, are the HR prac­ti­tion­ers for the en­tire pub­lic ser­vice. They are well versed in HR and IR best prac­tices and are quite knowl­edge­able on the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment in the pub­lic ser­vice. These are the per­sons who have raised con­cerns about the CPO’s poor lead­er­ship, man­age­ment abil­i­ties and dra­con­ian poli­cies. These of­fi­cers have been pro­vid­ed with a copy of the CPO’s re­sponse and have chal­lenged the ve­rac­i­ty of the points raised in his cor­re­spon­dence.” 

Ma­hara­jh added that it was con­cern­ing that Din­di­al chose not to en­gage with the union any fur­ther on the mat­ters raised but was urg­ing the union to ad­dress their griev­ances through the joint con­sul­ta­tive com­mit­tee, which Din­di­al said, had not been done.  

Ma­hara­jh said, “The PSA af­firms that as the head of the Per­son­nel De­part­ment, the de­part­ment from where the myr­i­ad of is­sues arose, we were com­pelled, pur­suant to the griev­ance pro­ce­dure, to bring these griev­ances to the at­ten­tion of the CPO. To date, the CPO has opt­ed not to meet with the union to dis­cuss these is­sues, con­trary to the griev­ance pro­ce­dure, the Civ­il Ser­vice Act and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions best prac­tice.

“How­ev­er, rest as­sured that the PSA will re­spond to the CPO in the com­ing days in the in­ter­est of bring­ing some re­lief to our mem­bers who con­tin­ue to com­plain to us about the CPO’s fla­grant abuse of pow­er as head of the de­part­ment.” 

Some of the com­plaints lev­elled against Din­di­al are the in­tro­duc­tion of key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors (KPIs) with­out con­sul­ta­tion with the union, re­strict­ing ac­cess to parts of the build­ing, for­bid­ding con­gre­gat­ing of em­ploy­ees dur­ing work­ing hours, ex­ces­sive dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions with­out nat­ur­al jus­tice and ver­bal and emo­tion­al abuse, as well as threats of dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions if rules are not ad­hered to.