There is justification in the sacking of English, Bowen - Jagdeo

There is justification in the sacking of English, Bowen – Jagdeo

Jan 20, 2009 News

By Tusika Martin

There is justification for the recent sacking of Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) General Manager Karen Bowen, and Maritime Administration head, Ivor English, President Bharrat Jagdeo said yesterday.

During a press conference at State House yesterday, the Head of State said that he intends to “get to the bottom” of the issue, but is yet to determine whether Works Minister Robeson Benn has the jurisdiction to carry out such procedures.

He added that while he has not been approached to intervene in the matter, he understands the ‘anger’ of Minister Benn.

The Transport and Harbours Department is a subvention agency, and, according to President Jagdeo, every year it receives large sums of money from Government.

“Their revenue is not sufficient to meet their cost, so every year they require a large subvention from the Government. They ran up huge fuel bills; one time it ran to over $100M, and we cleared it,” the Head of State said.

According to Jagdeo, he has always heard from the T&HD that it does not have money to put in some basic things that are critical for navigation.

“They are always short of funds, so when I was told that there was authority to spend $15M on the sports building and they spent $47M on it, I can see where the anger is coming from on the part of the minister.”

The Head of State said that he cannot understand how it is that the department cannot generate money to do the things that are critical for its job, but instead can find $32M more than what was authorised to spend on a building for recreational purposes.

“I have to examine whether the minister has the authority to sack,…If that’s the case, I would feel there is justification …not that the process would be the right one…so I will have to examine the process.”

Last week, Minister Benn sacked General Manager Karen Bowen and Maritime Director Ivor English with immediate effect.

According to reports, the minister is claiming that he had authorised that a sum of $15M be expended on the rehabilitation of the T&HD Sports Club, located at Thomas Lands, but the top officials instead allowed $47M to be utilised.

The building was declared unsafe by the Guyana Fire Service some time ago, and rehabilitation works are currently ongoing.

Subsequent to the sacking, the minister said that he had written letters and had called in the state auditors to undertake audits at the department, although he did not acknowledge that there was a fraud of any kind.

English and Bowen concluded that Minister Benn overstepped his authority.

They say that the decision to sack public servants should have come from the Public Service Commission.

The minister said that any further discussions about the dismissed workers will be done at the appropriate time, once these discussions are believed to be relevant.

Meanwhile, Claudette Rogers is currently acting in the capacity of Maritime Director and Kevin Trim as General Manager of the Transport and Harbours Department.

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There is justification in the sacking of English, Bowen – Jagdeo

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