With about $1.96 million still missing, Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) President Paul Maynard said Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) managers should be fired and not back on the job.

During an interview with The Bahama Journal last night, Maynard said the BPL managers must take responsibility because the junior employees who were terminated yesterday didn’t commit fraud on their own.

Maynard explained that it is impossible for the junior employees to create cheques on their own and cash them because there is a vetting process that cheques must go through and they are signed off by the managers.

“We are not condoning what has happened.  The point is every time something happens everybody points fingers to the bottom, down to our union.  Yea, but guess what, either the managers had to be involved or they have to be incredibly stupid,” Maynard said.

If the managers didn’t carry out the vetting process “they should be fired for stupidity and incompetence,” Maynard added.

Yesterday, three BPL junior employees were terminated following a forensic audit at the corporation.

However, two managers and one CFO went back to work earlier this week following a brief suspension.

Last night, The Bahama Journal also spoke to BEWU Secretary General Astrid Bodie who also agrees with the union’s president that the managers should take responsibility and be accountable for the situation that transpired.

While the union doesn’t condone stealing and wrongdoing on the job, Bodie said BEWU simply wants fair play in the work place.

She explained that there were 44 BPL cheques in question that were given to 16 vendors and each one of those cheques were signed by the manager and should have been vetted by the manager.

“So you trying to tell me now, you as a manager have 44 cheques, fraudulent cheques that come across your desk.  You sign them, you check the documents and you realize none of the documents are fraudulent.  Something is wrong there.  Out of 44 you should catch a few,” Bodie said.

“This is how I personally feel, either they are incompetent idiots or they were in on the scam.”

She pointed out that, according to a letter, the junior employees were dismissed on “suspicion of dishonesty.”

“Nobody can dismiss you of suspicion of dishonesty,” she added.

Bodie promised that the union isn’t going to sit on the issue because it seems as though union members are being used as “sacrificial lambs, as usual, just to keep the public quiet.”