A high-voltage clash between GPL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bharat Dindyal and his deputy which also drew in Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson has led to the ending of the CEO’s stewardship as of today.
Following days of confrontation between Dindyal and his Deputy CEO (Technical) Colin Welch over how accusations against senior managers should be dealt with, the government today said that after Patterson’s evaluation of the relevant facts, he advised Cabinet last evening to end the CEO’s engagement with GPL as of today.
A government statement today said that among the facts that Patterson considered were that Dindyal’s “substantive” contract had ended on December 31, 2014, that he had expressed the intention of parting ways with GPL and his “intervention” in staff matters some of which was video recorded and viewed on social media. The latter was a reference to a vociferous confrontation between Dindyal and Welch at GPL.
Prior to today’s government statement, Dindyal in an interview with Stabroek News had said that he had appointed a three-person team to investigate the accusations of Welch against the two managers who Welch, in the company of police, had attempted to have removed from the premises of GPL. Welch could not be contacted by Stabroek News for comment.
Dindyal had said that the team was to have commenced its work yesterday and was given three weeks to present a report to him on whether the DCEO was within his right to send anyone on administrative leave.
Dindyal told Stabroek News that on Monday following the initial incident last Friday, Welch again attempted to serve Senior Loss Reduction Manager, Loaknauth Singh and Senior Investigator David Kaladin with letters placing them on leave with police ranks in tow.
The CEO told Stabroek News that he was once again called down to the Sheriff Street office by concerned workers who were worried that the police were entering the building for internal matters.
Dindyal said that it was absolutely ridiculous that Welch would once again try to overstep his jurisdiction after he had overturned the earlier decision for want of evidence. Dindyal said that the company’s bylaws have provisions in place and that the DCEO was not the one mandated to address matters that were under the remit of the Human Resources Department.
The two senior managers were sent on administrative leave by the DCEO last Friday while he was accompanied by police ranks who were apparently to physically remove the two men from their offices on Sheriff Street. Dindyal said he was notified of the “frightening” situation by staffers and subsequently showed up and overturned the DCEO’s decision.
The CEO told Stabroek News that any issue with staff as it relates to ongoing investigations were internal matters and that there was nothing in the company bylaws that would allow for police to be called in to scare staffers. He said that Welch’s actions went against the collective bargaining agreement with the GPSU and that he could not fathom how the DCEO thought it was appropriate to “march into someone’s office with police,” to physically remove them without the jurisdiction to do so.
“Although we are a government agency we are configured as a private company so there are rules and regulations and everything we do is within the confines of the law”, Dindyal stated.
He said that the when he arrived at the location last Friday, he ripped up the letters which were delivered by Welch requesting Singh and Kaladin be placed on administrative leave. Only one of the men was at the location at the time.
The CEO told Stabroek News that Welch had stated that the Public Infrastructure Minister Patterson had given the go ahead to allow Welch to do as he wished.
“The minister contacted me and I alerted the minister. I said `minister Mr Welch cannot go into somebody’s office, evict them and send them off on administrative leave and claim the information against them. It breaches everything that we stand for in terms of procedures’”, Dindyal stated.
When asked why he did not take action against the DCEO for insubordination, Dindyal stated that “in the absence of a board I would prefer not to put it to Minster Patterson who the gentleman says is supporting his actions.”
Dindyal added that “Mr Welch was not recruited by GPL. He was handed to GPL, a position was created for him supposedly he was some kind of an expert…Mr Welch has turned out to be of no real value”.
Meanwhile, Minister Patterson in reply told Stabroek News this week that it was “absolute garbage” that he was advocating on behalf of Welch. The minister said that the DCEO was well within his right as the head of technical services to send persons on leave if he was investigating any instances of impropriety. When asked if he thought the DCEO’s actions were appropriate in calling in police ranks, the minister stated that he would rather not comment.
He noted that “the man is the DCEO appointed, I have inherited him,” adding that many of the issues were ongoing long before he became minister. Patterson said that the DCEO should be allowed to conduct his work and that he has not interfered at all with the day-to-day operations at GPL since assuming office.
The minister stated that he regrets the way in which the controversy has been playing out in the media and he did not want to get involved as it was an internal issue that needed to be worked about between the CEO and the DCEO.
Patterson at the time did not give any indication as to whether he would be intervening and when the new Board of Directors would be appointed and which could bring a resolution to the conflict between Dindyal and his deputy. The other Deputy CEO of GPL Aeshwar Deonarine has been sent on leave in an unrelated matter.
