Four port workers trustees quit
CHARLIE Johnston and three other trustees of the Kingston Port Workers Superannuation Fund have resigned, apparently paving the way for Kingston Wharves, in which the superannuation fund is a major shareholder, to beat back an attempt to remove most of its directors at a meeting on February 18.
Johnston, who was the chairman, resigned a few days ago, but his resignation was not officially made public until yesterday, when it was announced that three other trustees had also resigned. They are: Roger Hinds, Hylton Clarke, and Grantley Stephenson.
The four, all with shipping interests, are part of a group that had pulled together 49 per cent stake in Kingston Wharves and who had called for the meeting to vote off several members of the board of the porting company and replace them with their own nominees.
Their control of the voting power of the superannuation fund had all but secured their victory at the extraordinary meeting next week Tuesday.
However, Douglas Orane, the executive chairman of Grace, Kennedy which controls 43 per cent of Kingston Wharves, and whose nominees would have been booted off the board, apparently threatened legal action to prevent the trustees from voting at the meeting.
Without the vote of the superannuation fund, the group would fall short of the votes required to push through their agenda.