Former head of the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) Joseph O’Lall says he is going ahead with his litigation against the government for unfair dismissal when all he was trying to do was help his agency through ways and means that were available to him.
O’Lall told this newspaper on Friday that he would go ahead with the court action after not receiving any word from the government on his request for a hearing into his being sent off.
O’Lall was dismissed on December 31, 2007 by way of a letter written by Robeson Benn, acting Minister of Public Works and Communication, for his disregard of Cabinet’s instructions regarding PetroCaribe.
O’Lall is maintaining that he did nothing wrong in creating a US dollar interest-bearing account to hold PetroCaribe monies – in contravention of Cabinet’s instructions – and sought only to bring in more money to the agency by being innovative. O’Lall said he was acting within the confines of the laws governing the GEA.
O’Lall had been placed on administrative leave in November for bungling fuel supplies for the Guyana Power and Light (GPL). At that time, the Chairman of GPL, Ronald Alli, was relieved of his post for misrepresenting the arrears of the company.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon said O’Lall was sacked for flouting Cabinet’s specific instructions for the handling of the PetroCaribe financial transactions between the governments of Guyana and Venezuela. Luncheon said there was no evidence that O’Lall was involved in the misappropriation of funds.
