Finance minister recommends CAL board dismissal

Finance Minister Winston Dookeran has recommended that the entire board of the state-owned Caribbean Airlines Limited be dismissed and replaced with one headed by former BWIA chief executive officer Conrad Aleong.

Caribbean Airlines is the company that replaced the restructured and failed BWIA. The airline is the new owner of Air Jamaica, a deal that closed Saturday, April 30.

A press conference scheduled for April 28 in Kingston to announce the closing of the deal was postponed without explanation.

The Trinidad Guardian newspaper reported Friday that Dookeran, the acting prime minister in the absence of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who is on an official visit to Brazil, had submitted his recommendations two weeks ago.

The paper said that the recommendations had been submitted to Persad-Bissessar in a letter and follows the ongoing controversy within the George Nicholas-led board of directors.

In his letter, Dookeran said that the present board "does not have knowledge or competence in the issues pertaining to the airline business", and has no appreciation for the issues of good corporate governance.

"The commercial stakes are high and the cost of political inaction will be high as well," Dookeran wrote.

Two weeks after assuming office, the board fired former chief executive Captain Ian Brunton, indulged in a public rift and reconciliation with line minister Jack Warner, and then began infighting with each other.

Warner already has presented a note to Cabinet advising that the board be dissolved. But Cabinet referred the matter to the Finance and General Purposes Committee, and before her departure on Sunday for Brazil, the prime minister said she was awaiting a report before making a decision on the controversial board.

"It was referred to the Finance and General Purposes Committee, and I have not had a report from that Finance Committee," she told reporters.

The Trinidad Guardian newspaper said that Dookeran had also suggested that Ian Bertrand and Michael Dolsingh, executives with experience in airline management, be appointed to the board of CAL, which recently took over the cash-strapped Air Jamaica.

- CMC