By Sue-Ann Wayow

STATE owned Caribbean Airlines has been given two years to fix its monetary problems.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said on Monday, “I am giving the management of Caribbean Airlines two years max. They have to sort out the mess, otherwise, everyone there will have to  look for a new job.”

Giving an update of her government’s performance at a United National Congress (UNC) report in Couva, Persad-Bissessar said it was unfair to citizens that some be kept at a low financial level while a few were allowed to receive millions in dollars due to flawed distribution.

She said in Caribbean Airlines, there were 86 people in the financial department but the company was spending over $ 60 million hiring Ernst & Young and Price Waterhouse  to conduct audits.

To date, Caribbean Airlines has not submitted an audited financial statement for the last nine years.

Persad-Bissessar said, “Do you know that not one single Caribbean Airlines  route is profitable, yet plane filling up every day going and coming but we are spending millions of dollars there.”

She added, “No longer will we accept taxes paid by ordinary citizens paid teachers, policemen, and small enterprises. We take your money to upkeep CAL, allowing its management to receive large salaries for doing what failing at their jobs. It must not continue.”

CAL’s new board of directors headed by Chairman Reyna Kowlessar received their appointment on June 24 from Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo.

On June 5, Persad-Bissessar said during a post Cabinet meeting, “There are a lot of problems at Caribbean Airlines, money wise. Caribbean Airlines sent us many pages of things they say ‘you must pay this now or Caribbean Airlines will go into blacklist, the airline will collapse, it will fall,’”.

Apart from CAL, the prime minister said many other failing state enterprises were still spending billions of dpollars in debt.

She instructed the new boards to do what it takes to turn situations around or face the consequences.