Former Debt Recovery Manager at the Guyana Water Incorporated, Lear Goring, believes that his firing by the Board was unfair and pre-planned and had nothing to do with his qualifications.
Goring was fired by the Board on Thursday after he was initially sent on leave to allow a probe of his qualifications. He had already been on the job for 10 months.
In an exclusive interview with News Source, Goring said that he believes the board’s decision had more to do with press reports of his criminal past from more than 20 years ago than anything else.
He said in the 10 months that he served as Debt Recovery Manager, GWI recovered more than $1 Billion in outstanding debt out of $5 Billion. He said he was confident that he would have been able to completely have all of the debts settled to put the company in a stronger financial position.
However, those plans were dashed when GWI confirmed the Board’s decision to fire him on Thursday. He said he was not surprised by the decision.
“I was expecting that decision because that was the intended outcome because I was expecting that decision by the GWI Management and Board”, he said.
Goring said GWI’s Board never questioned his qualifications for the job in the 10 months that he was in the company’s employ. He said he was hired to run the debt recovery department by Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Richard Van West Charles. The Department was closed for more than four years under the previous government.
He said when he got the job, the requirements covered a High School Diploma and or CXC passes. He said he met those requirements and also had several certificates from programmes he completed when he lived in the United States, so he is convinced that his dismissal had nothing to do with his qualifications.
Goring was deported twice from the United States twenty years ago on two separate drug related charges. That information was revealed recently in a Kaieteur News report in his presence at GWI. He said he has long put his past behind him and has been back in Guyana for more than 15 years. Since his return to Guyana after being deported, he has worked in a number of African countries and has also worked locally in various capacities at different companies.
He made it clear that the GWI Board never questioned him about his past and therefore he did not think he needed to provide any details about his past. “If they asked, I would have told them”, he assured.According to Goring, his only other interactions with the Board were to deal with his plans for the company’s debt recovery arm and the presentation of a plan for the unit’s effectiveness.
Goring appears convinced that his removal from office may have been as a result of the newspaper’s report on his criminal past and the political situation in the country. He believes too that some persons at GWI may have wanted him removed because of his aggressive way of going after persons and companies for monies owed to the company.
He recalled that on one occasion he was instructed by GWI management to no longer pursue several companies that owed money that amounted to millions of dollars.
Mr. Goring said he believes he will rise again, but he has not decided what actions, if any, he might take against GWI over his dismissal.
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