No renewal of contract for Curoil-director

March 30, 2011 3:57 PM

The Board of Commissioners (RvC) of government NV Curoil is considering not to renew the contract of director Gensley Capella.

Capella’s contract expires in June. Quincy Carrega, chairman of the RvC, has convened a special meeting for tomorrow.

The reason for this meeting is the letter, which Premier Gerrit Schotte forwarded to all Boards of Commissioners. In the letter, the Premier requests ‘to bring the employment contracts of the current directors into line with the stipulations of good corporate governance – in consultation with the current directors’. The government’s viewpoint is not to renew the contracts that expire this year.

However, the Institution Implementation Privatization (StIP) renewed Capella’s contract last year. The new employment contract becomes effective on June 11th 2011, and expires after five years, in 2016. Nevertheless, the commissioners believe they are in the right when they decide to dissolve the contract tomorrow.

According to the commissioners, StIP acted unlawfully on three points. In their opinion, the institution was not authorized to conclude these new employment contracts. Firstly, the meanwhile dismissed StIP-members Joel da Silva Gois and Henri Emerenciana were seated in the board of StIP unlawfully. The contract of the two board members had already expired. Da Silva Gois and Emerenciana were never reappointed officially. Secondly, StIP only consisted of two members, which is against the institution’s articles of association. According to these articles, the decisions are only valid if the board consists of at least three persons. Finally, StIP as the legal shareholder of Curoil can only appoint/reappoint a director of a government NV upon recommendation of the economic shareholder in this case the former island territory Curaçao. The correspondence available to the commissioners does not mention an official recommendation.

Capella

StIP and Capella agreed last year that the unaltered terms of employment would remain valid. Compared to other government NV’s, the Curoil-director has a ‘sober’ contract. According to a Curoil-commissioner, Capella’s gross monthly salary is around 20,000 guilders. Under Capella’s management, Curoil yielded a record profit of 35 million guilders in 2009. However, the tide turned last year, which was mainly due to a tariff adjustment of the fuel prices on the world market remaining forthcoming. Curoil pre-financed millions of guilders on the local market. Capella is in charge of Curoil since July 2006. To discourage division and rigidity, the government wants young blood in the government entities. According to Premier Schotte, this contributes towards the innovative capacity of these entities.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

30 March 2011