Eight former employees have sued the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) claiming wrongful dismissal stemming from the results of lie detector tests.
The eight former employees had writs lodged on their behalf yesterday. The GEA has 10 days to respond.
All eight persons are seeking damages in excess of $200,000 for wrongful termination of their contracts and mental distress suffered. The former employees are also claiming severance pay and additionally they want to be reinstated at their posts.
Vernon James, Hollyann France, Hilon Chester, Collis Phoenix, Nksi Dalgetty, Jeannel Noble, Ameer Ali and Nickeisha Gordon, formerly of the fuel marketing programme and inspection department at GEA, are the former employees who have approached the court. Attorney Basil Williams is representing them.
Earlier this year lie detector tests were administered to 34 GEA employees; 21 were said to have failed and were later let go. The employees, however, countered that no results were ever presented to them. One former staffer noted that the tests were also videotaped, but that when she requested to see the tape nothing was done and she was terminated immediately.
Back in May, the main opposition APNU called for a probe into how the tests were administered and what use they actually served. Later in the month, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon noted that the government was open to an investigation, however nothing more has been said on this since then.
Stabroek News learnt that the lie detector tests, which were administered through the Office of the President, was conducted on only low level employees and was first advertised as a voluntary measure.
Employees were told that the point of the test was to maintain the integrity of the agency. Earlier in the year, 21 persons from the GEA and a number of workers from the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit, the Guyana Police Force and its Criminal Investigations Department were all given polygraphs with little warning.
