An­drea Perez-Sobers &

Brent Pin­heiro

There was un­ease amongst work­ers at Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) yes­ter­day, af­ter they learned that Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Garvin Med­era, had en­tered in­to a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment with the com­pa­ny.

In­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter, how­ev­er, was hard to come by, as Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands it is sub­ject to a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

The work­ers are now con­cerned that with this move, which is set to take ef­fect in two weeks, more cuts with­in the air­line will be on the hori­zon.

CAL has made no state­ment on the mat­ter due to the non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

But in­formed sources told Guardian Me­dia that Med­era, the air­line’s longest-serv­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive, faced scruti­ny over cer­tain pro­cure­ment ex­er­cis­es un­der­tak­en un­der his watch.

Ef­forts to con­tact Med­era were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day. He went on va­ca­tion from Sep­tem­ber 8 and was ex­pect­ed to re­turn on Oc­to­ber 13. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands he will now not do so.

Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer Nir­mala Ra­mai re­mains act­ing CAL CEO at this time.

Dur­ing a func­tion at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dave Tan­coo said he was in the dark over ini­tial re­ports that Med­era had re­signed.

“I have no in­for­ma­tion about any per­son in any po­si­tion who would have re­signed,” Tan­coo stat­ed.

“It’s not the man­date of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to be so ad­vised, and I have not been so ad­vised.”

Pressed fur­ther, Tan­coo re­peat­ed that up to the time of the in­ter­view, he had not been made aware of any change to Med­era’s sta­tus at the air­line.

“In all hon­esty, I did not. I as­sume that if he has re­signed, at some point, I will be ad­vised. But I have not yet been ad­vised of such.”

Ac­cord­ing to Tan­coo, the last of­fi­cial up­date he had re­ceived was that Med­era was on va­ca­tion.

“The last I heard was that he was on va­ca­tion. I have heard noth­ing else. I left my of­fice to come here, and I have seen noth­ing on my desk in­di­cat­ing that he has re­signed or that the sta­tus quo has changed from him be­ing on va­ca­tion.”

Union con­cern

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) said it was deeply con­cerned about the lead­er­ship vac­u­um cre­at­ed by the de­par­ture of Med­era.

TTAL­PA pres­i­dent Ja­son Wick­ham said the news had come as a sur­prise to the as­so­ci­a­tion, which is now seek­ing clar­i­ty on the fu­ture di­rec­tion of the na­tion­al car­ri­er.

“We are very con­cerned about the un­cer­tain­ty in terms of the vac­u­um which has been left with Mr Med­era’s de­par­ture, and we hope that there will not be a long time­frame in or­der to find a suit­able can­di­date,” Wick­ham said. “His leav­ing has sur­prised us.”

Wick­ham high­light­ed that dur­ing Med­era’s tenure, CAL un­der­went one of the most ag­gres­sive ex­pan­sion dri­ves in its his­to­ry, ac­quir­ing a new fleet and up­grad­ing its air­craft types.

“We have seen over the years a rapid ex­pan­sion. We have nev­er seen an ex­pan­sion such as what took place when he was there,” Wick­ham not­ed.

“The air­line was ex­pand­ing at a rapid pace, ac­quir­ing a new fleet of air­craft. It got the 737 MAX when he was there, a new air­craft type as op­posed to the 737, the old­er ver­sion that we had for al­most 20-some­thing years. We re­placed those. We got a new tur­bo­prop air­craft. It was an ex­pan­sion and hir­ing of more pi­lots, flight at­ten­dants, and gen­er­al staff.”

Wick­ham said with Med­era’s re­port­ed ex­it, there is grow­ing un­ease about the con­tin­u­a­tion of these ini­tia­tives.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the de­vel­op­ment, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Bri­an Man­ning, ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly vic­tim­is­ing in­de­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als across the pub­lic ser­vice, claim­ing that qual­i­fied in­di­vid­u­als are be­ing side­lined in favour of po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ists.

He said the de­vel­op­ment was “dis­heart­en­ing” to many hard-work­ing pro­fes­sion­als who have demon­strat­ed com­pe­tence, re­sults-dri­ven lead­er­ship, and in­de­pen­dence.

“It’s sad to see this Gov­ern­ment sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly vic­timise in­de­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als across the pub­lic ser­vice, peo­ple who have shown that they can re­al­ly man­age and pro­duce qual­i­ty re­sults,” Man­ning told Guardian Me­dia.

He ar­gued that re­cent per­son­nel changes sug­gest that per­for­mance and ex­pe­ri­ence are no longer the key cri­te­ria for pub­lic ap­point­ments.

“In­stead, what we are see­ing are per­sons be­ing se­lect­ed not on the ba­sis of mer­it but due to par­ty loy­al­ty, to man­age the af­fairs of the peo­ple of this coun­try. That’s un­fair, and it’s some­thing that can­not be ig­nored,” he said.

Man­ning said the pat­tern of forced de­par­tures and res­ig­na­tions rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions.

“In the past few months, we have seen qual­i­ty pro­fes­sion­als re­moved or pres­sured to re­sign for no rea­son oth­er than to make way for un­qual­i­fied cronies. All of these peo­ple didn’t just de­cide to re­sign as soon as the gov­ern­ment changed; that would be too much of a co­in­ci­dence.”

While he stopped short of di­rect­ly as­sert­ing that Med­era was forced out, Man­ning sug­gest­ed the op­tics were trou­bling.

“I couldn’t say for cer­tain in his case, but it does seem to be the trend. It sends the wrong sig­nal, and it un­der­mines con­fi­dence in the gov­er­nance of the pub­lic ser­vice,” he added.

He warned that such prac­tices risk erod­ing morale with­in state en­ti­ties and weak­en­ing the coun­try’s in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty at a time when sound man­age­ment is ur­gent­ly need­ed.

Ten­u­ous tenure at air­line

Some CAL em­ploy­ees yes­ter­day said there was un­easi­ness as word got out that Med­era would not re­turn.

How­ev­er, some work­ers were al­so hap­py, as they claimed the en­vi­ron­ment had be­come very tox­ic un­der his lead­er­ship. One source claimed un­der his lead­er­ship, there was ex­ces­sive spend­ing, mis­guid­ed pri­or­i­ties and spon­sor­ship deals un­re­lat­ed to avi­a­tion, which erod­ed prof­itabil­i­ty.

In re­cent weeks, re­ports have been cir­cu­lat­ing on­line that Med­era had been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing the out­come of an in­ter­nal re­view. The air­line de­bunked those re­ports, call­ing them “false” and not from “au­tho­rised sources.”

Med­era is cred­it­ed with lead­ing the air­line to op­er­a­tional prof­itabil­i­ty in 2018, 2023, and 2024. He spear­head­ed a fleet re­new­al ex­er­cise, swap­ping out old­er Boe­ing 737-800 NGs for new­er, more fu­el-ef­fi­cient Boe­ing 737-8 air­craft and leas­ing ad­di­tion­al ATR 72-600 air­craft.

The ATR fleet has made CAL’s ex­pan­sion in the re­gion pos­si­ble, as they’ve been used to con­nect the Eng­lish, Span­ish, Dutch, and French Caribbean.

But his tenure has not been with­out con­tro­ver­sy. In 2018, five months in­to the job, he was hauled be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, where al­le­ga­tions of rule flout­ing and im­prop­er hir­ing prac­tices were lev­elled against him. Med­era al­so faced back­lash dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic when he re­ceived a $500,000 per­for­mance bonus at a time when the air­line was in a fight for its sur­vival and was forced to re­trench staff. Though part of his con­tract, the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion to pay the bonus prompt­ed an out­cry in sev­er­al quar­ters.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Med­era had been at odds with the new CAL board, head­ed by chair­man Rey­na Kow­lessar. Among the is­sues raised by the board was the com­pa­ny’s fail­ure to pro­vide au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial re­sults over the past nine years.

Med­era’s de­par­ture comes weeks af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to the CAL ex­ec­u­tive.

Speak­ing dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Au­gust, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused man­age­ment of fail­ing to do its job, pay­ing $60 mil­lion to EY and Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers (PwC) for au­dits de­spite a large in­ter­nal fi­nan­cial team, fail­ing to sub­mit au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for the past nine years, and op­er­at­ing un­prof­itable routes.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered an ul­ti­ma­tum to the man­age­ment, say­ing, “I am giv­ing the man­age­ment of Caribbean Air­lines two years, max, they have to sort out the mess; oth­er­wise, every­one there will be look­ing for a new job… your fu­ture is in your hands.”

She added, “No longer will we ac­cept tax­es paid by or­di­nary cit­i­zens, paid by teach­ers, paid by po­lice­men, small en­ter­pris­es … to up­keep CAL.”