CWU raises concerns over governance at NEL and TSTT

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) has raised con­cerns about gov­er­nance and ap­point­ments in­volv­ing Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (NEL) and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT).

In a state­ment dat­ed March 16, the union said de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween NEL and TSTT raise ques­tions about gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy and the per­cep­tion of in­de­pen­dence with­in State-linked en­ter­pris­es.

The CWU said NEL op­er­ates with­in a gov­er­nance struc­ture con­nect­ed to sev­er­al State as­sets, in­clud­ing its share­hold­ing re­la­tion­ship with TSTT. The union said such arrange­ments should al­low for over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the man­age­ment of as­sets con­nect­ed to the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

How­ev­er, the union said over­lap­ping au­thor­i­ty can cre­ate con­cerns about the con­cen­tra­tion of in­flu­ence and the ap­pear­ance of com­pro­mise.

The CWU re­ferred to the ap­point­ment of Kern Dass, who serves as chair­man of TSTT, to po­si­tions con­nect­ed with NEL. The union said such ap­point­ments can raise ques­tions about in­de­pen­dence and pub­lic con­fi­dence in de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

The union said when in­di­vid­u­als hold roles across con­nect­ed en­ti­ties, stake­hold­ers may ques­tion whether de­ci­sions are made in the in­ter­est of the en­ter­prise or in the in­ter­est of main­tain­ing align­ment among re­lat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions.

CWU said con­cerns al­so arise when ap­point­ments in­volve in­di­vid­u­als with­out ex­pe­ri­ence in sec­tors re­quir­ing tech­ni­cal and strate­gic un­der­stand­ing, in­clud­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the CWU Joanne M. Ogeer called for clar­i­ty on the cri­te­ria used in the se­lec­tion process.

The union said gov­er­nance struc­tures in State-linked en­ter­pris­es must main­tain in­de­pen­dence, over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty to pro­tect pub­lic con­fi­dence and the man­age­ment of na­tion­al as­sets.