Thursday, August 6 2009

On the heels of Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s call on the citizenry to “loosen their belts” comes a report of 200 employees of Carillion Caribbean limited being left on the breadline.

Newsday reliably learnt that the workers were sent home during a two week period.

In a letter to the Oilfield Workers Trade Union the central Trinidad-based company cited their reasons for the “temporary shutdown of operations.”

The shutdown has taken place on their Samsung Engineering Petrotrin platform project. The two units – New Continuous Catalytic Regeneration (CCR) and Platforming Unit (CCR) are regarded as “significant commercial issues.”

After Newsday was promised a full interview on Monday, two officials of the company — Malcom Plater, and Toolsie Singh, later both had a change of heart, and said they “will not be making any comments on the issue.”

Numerous calls to the company’s Couva office proved futile as employees remained tightlipped.

When Newsday contacted project manager Gordon Valverde he said he could not comment, and instead directed Newsday back to Toolsie Singh, the labour relations official.

However President of the OWTU Ancil Roget speaking to Newsday said that while he suspected Samsung Engineering has not been meeting its payments to Carillion the real source of the controversy stemmed from state-owned Petrotrin.