The senior mechanic who is among the four persons being investigated for negligence in the damage of the boiler system at Barama Company Ltd’s Land of Canaan factory, still fears he will lose his severance, while the company says its too early to say.
The 49-year-old mechanic who has given 17 years of service at the plywood factory said that on Monday he received a letter from the company which asked him to give reason why he should not be dismissed. He said the three other persons being investigated were asked the same thing.
According to the senior mechanical supervisor, his team is responsible for maintenance of all equipment at the factory. On Saturday October 2, maintenance day, he said, one of his mechanics had carried out work on the gauge glass of the boiler which was leaking.
For the work to be done, the operator of the boiler had turned off the water valve. The senior mechanic said he explained all of this to the management and believes that if anybody should be held accountable it should be the operator and his supervisor.
He said those are the two persons responsible for the boiler. However, he said there was animosity between the operator and the supervisor and he opined that a breakdown in communication between them was what led to the negligence.
The senior mechanic said the operator was annoyed that he had been bypassed for a promotion by his supervisor when the company’s management changed a few months back. Since then, the senior mechanic said, “they don’t get along”.
The operator, his supervisor and the mechanic who worked on the boiler are the other three persons being investigated.
But the greatest worry for the senior mechanic is whether he will be given his severance. Yesterday when this newspaper contacted Barama’s Head of the Corporate Affairs Mohindra Chand and asked if severance would be withheld for those found culpable, he said “it was too premature to say” since the investigation is still ongoing.
Chand added that the company is “reviewing the appropriate course of action” but he pointed out that while the four were under investigation, it did not necessarily mean that all four would be held accountable.
According to Chand, the operator and his supervisor were responsible for monitoring the boiler to ensure its smooth functioning. But ultimately it was the supervisor who must verify that systems were back to normal after maintenance was completed. That, he said, was the protocol. The investigation, he added, is likely to conclude some time next week.
On Friday, Barama formally laid off 274 workers from its Land of Canaan operation after the boiler system was damaged on October 4. Workers’ severance is being calculated according to the number of years each worker has given the company. The package also includes outstanding leave and one month’s pay in lieu of notice. The pay out is expected to begin by month end.
“Negligence on the part of trained and experienced personnel led to the boiler system not being fed with the required water supply and resulted in the overheating of the system. This immediately resulted in the entire factory being shutdown,” Barama said in a statement it issued on Thursday night. That statement came following a news item Thursday afternoon on www.stabroeknews. com on the imminent layoffs. Up to that point the company had said nothing about the matter.
