Former sugar workers demand $$ owed by ADB and UTT

Workers of the former Caroni (1975) Limited staged a protest Wednesday outside the San Fernando office of the Agricultural development Bank (ADB) to demand that they be paid monies owing to them.

The workers have invested their Voluntary Separation of Employment Package (VSEP) money into a fund administered by the ADB and the Unit Trust Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UTC).

When they made the investment six years ago they were promised substantial interest on the funds, but that has not been the case.

ADB's Chief Executive Officer, Jacqueline Rawlins, wrote the 3,200 former workers several months ago advising them that their deposits had failed to earn the projected interest due to the global financial crisis. As a result the Individual Retirement Unit Account (IRUA) that they held was unable to pay the interest, she said.

The workers were led to believe they had a sound investment back in 2003.

The Chairman of the ADB and UTC at the time said the intention was to deposit the VSEP earnings into UTC's retirement plan.

"You can then borrow up to the amount deposited, with your original deposit acting as security for your loan," Hubert Alleyne said. The investment was supposed to deliver an annualized rate of return of about eight per cent.

Allan Praimdass, spokesperson for the former workers, told the Trinidad Express the group will seek legal advice on how to proceed.

"We met with an official at the ADB and she is saying the same thing that the letters said - we won't be able to get the interest, but what we are saying is that we are entitled to the $49,000 on every $100,000 invested as promised because they have made the interest," Praimdass said, noting that the interest is due now.

He said the former workers had received statements from the ADB until last March that showing their money had accumulated interest.