Stories by
JOEL JULIEN
A former director of TSTT received a US$9,000 per diem to attend an international conference on behalf of the majority State-owned telecommunications company but he did not go.
He left TSTT and never returned the money.
The Emile Elias-chaired TSTT board is now considering legal action to recover the funds, the Sunday Guardian has learned.
Elias described the action as “grave misconduct” on the part of the former director.
He confirmed the situation during a telephone interview on Friday as he said that his board was currently examining all facets of TSTT’s operations.
Elias was named as the chairman of TSTT’s board in November last year.
“There has been no audit done by the new board of the entire organisation. What we are doing is examining all facets of the operations looking at how we go into the future with the new strategic plan that the board has approved and this would include looking at how we can expand revenue, reduce costs including personnel cost and significantly improve the level of service we give to our customers,” Elias said.
“In that process from time to time we will come across certain things that may have occurred in the past and these would be and have been checked into and corrective action taken,” he said.
Elias said one of the things the board was carefully examining is the “behaviour” of specific individuals with respect to Cable and Wireless Communication’s (CWC) decision to offload its 49 per cent stake in TSTT in order to comply with conditions placed on its takeover of Columbus International.
The remaining 51 per cent of TSTT is controlled by Government through its investment holding company, National Enterprises Ltd (NEL).
“One of the things we examined carefully was the way in which Cable and Wireless left TSTT and the behaviour of certain persons within TSTT, NEL and the regulator TATT (Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago) with respect of how they apparently cooperated with CWC in their particular endeavours,” Elias said.
Elias said during the examination of the company they uncovered the situation with the former board member.
“A former director left TSTT owing a substantial amount of money received for ostensibly travelling to some international conference and then did not go and did not return the funds,” Elias said.
“As soon as I found out about it I ensured that he was written to and given a deadline to return the funds some US$9,000 and so far he has not returned it but has said he would and I have instructed the corporate secretary to pursue the matter with great vigour and if he does not return the money to take such appropriate legal action as may be required to ensure the return of these funds to TSTT,” he said.
Elias said the director should not have been selected to attend the international conference in the first place.
“They add no value whatsoever to the company and it was a waste of money all this travel but having agreed to travel, the board having approved it, this is the last board, but then at the last minute you don’t travel then you have to return the per diem and you don’t and that I consider to be grave misconduct,” Elias said.
Elias dismissed claims that the disruption in service experienced by TSTT over the weekend was an act of sabotage.
“TSTT is conducting a full and detailed root-cause analysis, along with its relevant network partners to accurately determine the cause. We are also exploring what critical measures must be put in place to mitigate a similar incident from being repeated,” a release from the company stated.
“We will be taking corrective action to ensure there is no repeat of this event,” Elias said.
Last Sunday, TSTT customers found themselves without service to the mobile, Internet and landline services for most of the day.
TSTT said preliminary investigations have revealed the cause of the blackout to be the failure of equipment at the company’s St Augustine, Nelson and Chaguanas exchanges.