– cites mismanagement, raises concern over outrageous benefits
The National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) has repeated its call for the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) CEO Bharat Dindyal to go, saying he has mismanaged the electricity utility to the detriment of workers and customers.
“…The union strongly objects to any renewal of this CEO’s contract,” said NAACIE’s General Secretary Kenneth Joseph in a press statement on Monday, while also saying that there is corruption in the company and that Dindyal is receiving outrageous benefits on top of a monthly salary of $2.4 million. “NAACIE insists that the Board should be quite conscious that the administration and management of the GPL by this CEO is obviously spiralling downwards,” he added.
The statement came two months after Joseph called for Dindyal’s resignation, accusing him of anti-union practices and saying that differences were irreconcilable.
In particular, Joseph cited the Loss Reduction Unit, which he called a non-unionised group of workers introduced in the company during an attempt to derecognise the union. He said GPL created the Loss Reduction Unit to “run down, flush out and question suspected electricity theft instead of improving the transmission and distribution or generation system of the company.” As a result, he said only the poorest of society were wrongfully targeted, while the company itself fails to take action against those using unmetered electricity.
Joseph said that the power company and the union had agreed that workers would have been trained to multitask and a new job evaluation was to have been done to ensure that workers are paid in keeping with newly acquired skills. “The fact is, no significant amount of training was done. Job classification and description were done without the involvement of the union and without increases in remuneration,” he said, while also noting that work was also outsourced in some areas without going through the normal employment channels.
Joseph also accused the company of corruption in its procurement mechanisms, saying that senior officials were allegedly involved in the tendering process and he questioned whether the CEO knew of such transactions.
In addition, Joseph noted that the difference in levels of payment and conditions of work when considering GPL’s drive towards cost reduction was also a concern to the union.
In this regard, he said some of the benefits being given to Dindyal are “outrageous.”
He noted that the CEO’s basic salary is US$12,000 monthly, while there is an incentive scheme of 0 to 20% of the basic salary.
He also noted that there is provision by the company by for the cost of housing, security and utilities up to US$2,500 per month, and a fully loaded vehicle, fuelled and maintained by the company. He added that the CEO and up to three members of his family are also entitled to two business class return air tickets to the USA yearly and he is also entitled to be paid a lump sum of US$5,000 for demobilising costs if the CEO has to move back to his own residence. “This is strange for a Guyanese employee,” Joseph noted, while adding that the union would feel uncomfortable if it is to discuss academic qualifications for jobs with its members, with respect to the CEO’s office.
Dindyal addressed NAACIE’s allegations, in a short interview with this newspaper yesterday.
He said that the Loss Reduction Unit was created in 2007 to attend to loss reduction both internally and externally, and to also deal with theft and other types of infractions. “We have taken a very strong position but Joseph has tried to have people reinstated. The union has sought repeatedly to frustrate investigations by telling members not to give evidence. Those people are employees and have to comply with the company’s rules,” said Dindyal.
On the reduction of the workforce, Dindyal said that this is a natural progression of the company’s efforts to make the operations more efficient. He said that with better generating capacity and transmission and distribution systems, it is inevitable that the number of workers would need to be reduced. “This has nothing to do with union busting,” he emphasised, while adding that the decision to reduce the workforce also has to do with the limited resources for projects that the company has available.
He said that the company cannot pay people to sit and do nothing, hence the need to downsize.
He said that NAACIE was given a chance to organise the workers who were laid off so that they may be offered contract work but there was no interest shown by the union to this proposal.
In response to the allegations of corruption in procurement, he said that the company has a transparent tender board process, which is managed by its directors.
Dindyal also told this newspaper that some time ago GPL donated a quantity of computers to NAACIE so that they would use them to train workers and prepare them for other positions. He said that until now, he has had no feedback from NAACIE on the benefits derived from the donated computers.
NAACIE also accused GPL of purchasing a treadmill for its CEO, an allegation that Dindyal brushed off as too trivial and spurious to merit a response.
