(Trinidad Express) Trinidad Cement Ltd chief executive Dr Rollin Bertrand was suspended on Wednesday by the newly-installed board of directors of the Claxton Bay producer. The decision to suspend him came during the board’s first meeting on Tuesday night at the Radisson Hotel in Port of Spain, the same night they were voted into the directors’ positions.
Bertrand was one of six directors who resigned from the company minutes before a group of shareholders held a special (compulsory) meeting to have them removed. Although he resigned as director, Bertrand retained his position as CEO on Tuesday.
Seven new directors were elected on Tuesday—Wilfred Espinet, Alison Lewis, Chris Dehring, Glenn Hamel-Smith, Nigel Edwards and Cemex executives Carlos Palero and Francisco Aguilera. Espinet, who was chosen as chairman of the TCL board, told the Express during a phone interview on Wednesday that during the directors’ first meeting several decisions were taken including sending Bertrand on suspension until a review of his performance is done.
He said this will take no more than 30 days. When asked the reason for Bertrand’s suspension, Espinet said: “They suspended him because there were some concerns the shareholders and directors had, that they needed to do a proper and thorough analysis of.
“We needed to make sure the proper process has been followed in giving Dr Bertrand a chance to first of all analyse whether or not there was any issue that we saw that was not in keeping with normal practices.
That only has to do with the behaviour of the person in executing his functions.” Espinet said the board was also embarking on several studies to understand the position of the company, both from a financial and operational point of view. In the last few months TCL shareholders had been pushing to get rid of the former board as they were unhappy with the way the company was being run.
