MS. ROSALINDA Rasul, the former Chief Executive Officer and Country Manager of the now grounded low cost carrier EZjet airlines, has said that had she only known what was afoot, Guyana would not have been in its unenviable position today. She made this statement because the airline has folded, passengers have been left stranded, refunds have to be made, and there is no money available.

At last Thursday’s press conference, Rasul told the media that funds for tickets sold locally were all accounted for and were well intact, until recently.

She explained that after she had been made aware, via a media press release, that company founder Sonny Ramdeo had named her acting CEO following the lawsuit which had been filed against him, her responsibilities increased; and a lot of the financial responsibilities of the company were transferred onto the Guyana office.

Attempting to chronicle the events which led to the grounding of the airline following suspension of its licences, Ms Rasul revealed that besides its own local expenses, the Guyana office was asked to pay the fuel bills for the EZjet offices in the United States, Canada, and Trinidad and Tobago, which amounted to two hundred and forty thousand United States dollars (US$240,000).

Ms Rasul said the Guyana office was “left in the dark” by the founder, Sonny Ramdeo, who repeatedly deceived the staff of all the various offices. Only Ramdeo knew all that was happening in the company financially; had the staff of the various offices — especially the Guyana office — been informed of the troubles facing the company, systems would have been implemented to prevent prospective passengers from “ending up in the mess they presently find themselves in”.

The Chronicle was reliably informed that, after becoming aware of EZjet’s messy financial trajectory, Ms Rasul had attempted to get monies from the other country offices which were being supported by the Guyanese office, but those attempts were unsuccessful.

She had planned to utilise those funds to refund Guyana office passengers to negate any long wait in that respect. The local office, regrettably, never envisaged the airline falling flat on its face, as currently obtains and has now forced  activation of the four hundred thousand US dollars’ performance bond (US$400,000) lodged by the airline before it commenced operation.