ANOTHER GOVERNMENT agency has been hit with resignations.

Executive director of the HEART Trust/National Training Agency (NTA) Paulette Dunn-Smith and senior director Clover Barnett yesterday parted company with the agency.

The development came after information on a website linked the two senior directors to a regional company that provided similar services to HEART Trust/NTA.

George Ramocan, a member of the board, has been asked to act as executive director with immediate effect.

Available material

Dr Nigel Clarke, chairman of HEART Trust/NTA, said publicly available material linked the director of the company to Caribbean TVET Consultants Limited, a Grenadian company.

The Grenadian firm reportedly provides technical, vocational education and training consulting, and other services in the Caribbean.

In a release, Clarke said Dunn-Smith and Barnett maintained that they had not benefited from work carried out by the company. The two former executives have also said they neither owned shares in the Grenadian company nor were they directors.

However, both women said they had been asked and had consented to be advisers to the company.

"The board at this time has no reason to disbelieve Mrs Dunn-Smith or Mrs Clover Barnett, who have both served HEART faithfully and with dedication for 17 years," the release stated.

However, the board contended that the controversy caused by the voluntary publication of material suggested a particular relationship between the directors and the company, created room for doubt, undermined HEART and regrettably, the position of the directors.