By The Nassau Guardian
NASSAU – Glen Laville’s termination from the Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) smacks of injustice and apparent lack of due process, Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Leader Philip Brave Davis said yesterday.
Laville was fired on Wednesday, with WSC Executive Chairman Adrian Gibson accusing him of “mismanaging the affairs of the corporation”.
In a statement, Davis said he is very concerned by the actions of the WSC board and called for Minister of Works Desmond Bannister and Gibson to reexamine the matter.
“I am concerned about Glen Laville’s dismissal for cause as general manager of the Water and Sewerage Corporation,” Davis said. “The dismissal was for cause. This denies him his right to severance and possibly his pension. I will continue to monitor this. I am concerned about the bloody-mindedness of this regime. They double down to defend their position, even in the face of clear mistakes and errors.
“It appears that basic due process may have been overlooked. For example, they have based the dismissal on an Ernst and Young report, which is replete with errors and can be set aside for lack of due process in its results. I call upon the minister and chairman to reexamine this matter. It, on the face it, smacks of injustice.”
Laville was fired a week after Gibson tabled an audit into the corporation’s affairs completed by Ernst & Young (EY). Laville said that the audit damaged his reputation and contained inaccuracies and factual omissions.
In fact, he said he only received it Tuesday night after requesting a copy from the board.
In the termination letter to Laville, Gibson wrote: “Yesterday, the board met with you for several hours regarding the EY report in an attempt to obtain cogent answers and/or explanations as to the assertions contained in the EY report which suggested to the board that, during your tenure as general manager, you totally mismanaged the affairs of the corporation, failed to establish and/or follow proper controls and procedures, failed to properly establish and/or follow procurement procedures, failed to exercise any proper oversight of the Gladstone Road Waste Water Treatment Plant project, or the Eleuthera naval base storage tanks project to the detriment of the corporation.”
The letter added, “Additionally, in reviewing the minutes of former boards, it is clear that you failed to follow directives and/or intentionally withheld information and/or dealings from the board.” The letter is dated March 14 and signed by Gibson and copied to the board of WSC.
Gibson wrote that the board genuinely and reasonably believes that Laville breached the terms of his contract of employment as general manager.
But Laville categorically denied that he mismanaged the affairs of WSC and said he will be seeking legal advice.
“Obviously, I will be dealing with this thing seriously over the next few weeks,” he said.
“I’m not going to take it lying down. I’d hope to give the board the opportunity to at least sit down and hopefully retract some of these issues that I found to be blatantly false. But obviously that is not the course that they want to take. So I had avoided even dealing with anything in the press. Those who know me know what has been reported is untrue.”
Laville served as general manager of WSC since July 2010 and has spent 30 years with the corporation.
