Suspension will take effect early next week
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Supervisory Board of GEBE has taken a decision to suspend the Chief Financial Officer of the company Rene Gartner in order to safeguard the more than 300 employees and their families that depend on the company for their daily living.
According to well-placed sources at GEBE the Supervisory Board held several meetings with Gartner when they learnt of the misuse of the companies funds. One being the American company he is paying on a weekly basis for the SAP program which was not budgeted for in 2015, yet the company is being paid $9,600.00 weekly. Besides that Gartner used the company’s credit card to purchase airline tickets for his personal use and despite being told that he must repay the monies he did not make an effort to do so. Further to that Gartner has been using the bonds for Chippies Café, and Kings Mart on almost a daily basis even though he has his own allowances.
SMN News understands that besides the misspending the Supervisory Board found Rene Gartner is highly incompetent.
SMN News published several articles regarding the problems GEBE has been having with Gartner, starting with the vehicle he purchased without the authorization of the shareholder representatives.
While Gartner will be suspended the appointments of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) William Brooks is still on the desk of the outgoing Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs, the supervisory board also put forward the name of a candidate to take up the position of Chief Operations Officer (COO) but to date the appointments were not made. Hopefully, the incoming Council of Ministers will make those appointments as soon as they take office. SMN News understands that the leader of the UPP Theodore Heyliger wanted to appoint his friend Jeffry de la Combes a former employee of TELEM who was fired and is now working at Tropical Shipping but the UPP leader could not do as he wish since the supervisory board had submitted the names of the candidate they believe is more capable of handling the position as CEO.
Efforts made to reach members of the supervisory board on Saturday for confirmation proved futile.