Petrotrin not truthful about ‘hit list’

PETROTRIN is being untruthful about an alleged “hit list” to remove certain employees at the State-owned oil company. Newsday was told yesterday by sources that several pieces of correspondence sent last week to Petrotrin executive chairman Malcolm Jones, charging that persons named on a list previously sent to him, were several senior managers, who appeared to have been removed from their previous positions, under the guise of “organisational restructuring.” One documents stated, “By a convoluted process of ‘organisational restructuring’ these persons have been ‘reclassified,’ ‘transferred,’ ‘reassigned’ or demoted in consequence of which their level of authority and responsibilities was affected.” Another document showed the positions held by the 21 senior managers on December 24, 2001 (when the PNM formed the Government after that year’s general elections), their recommended status in 2002 and their present status in 2003. The second table in this document showed that in 2002, Petrotrin recommended that seven managers be replaced, the positions of another seven be made redundant, three managers be reclassified, three managers be redeployed with only one be retained.

The third column of this table showed that in 2003, seven of the managers were demoted, five were transferred (two of these subsequently took VSEP), one manager was promoted “to a job with lesser responsibility,” while two managers were put in departments which are yet to be restructured and another manager had to share his job portfolio with another person. The documents expressed concern to Jones that “these changes in senior personnel could revive allegations of racial discrimination by Petrotrin which have been made in the past.” All 21 persons named in the list are of a particular ethnicity. A company source lamented that the race pendulum appeared to swing in one direction under one government and the other way under its successor. The source wondered why the company could not be “Petro Merit.” The source said Petrotrin was wrong to claim that because none of the individuals lost salary or perks, this meant there was no discrimination at the company. The source added that, “there is more than one way to skin a cat” and while the managers’ financial packages may not have been affected, their individual competencies was severely damaged and this was a grave injustice against their individual characters.