The King and the Qatar Confusion

According to education minister Darin King, employees at College of the North Atlantic in Qatar will see their contracts honoured, as it would appear, with the mistaken salary numbers in them.

"It's not their issue or their fault as to why the college made an error and entered into an agreement that they ought not to have. So we'll honour the contracts," King said.

But reports from Qatar quote the College president there - Enid Strickland -  as saying:

She said new contracts with the correct salaries were signed at a meeting with the staff yesterday.

“This only affects a limited number of faculty members and some support staff,” said Strickland, adding “and now we have discussed the situation with them and signed their new contracts, everyone is fine.”

So when King said that contracts would be honoured, did he mean the old contracts or the new ones signed apparently on Wednesday, two days after King said what sure looks like the old contracts that existed at the time would be honoured?

To anyone else it sure looks like a case of two completely different stories.

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h/t to comments by One Woman on another post in the ongoing Qatar story.

Fortunately…the Qatar Version

Fortunately for the employees of College of the North Atlantic – Qatar campus -   education minister Darin King always says exactly what he means:

"It's not their issue or their fault as to why the college made an error and entered into an agreement that they ought not to have. So we'll honour the contracts," King said.

So they won’t have to pay back any money they received as a result of  unspecified errors, right?

Well, no.  Apparently, the minister doesn’t have enough information yet to determine what happened.  As a result, it’s too soon to know if the money will be written off.

Unfortunately for those employees, Darin King said exactly what he meant on Thursday, too:

I could easily do, Mr. Speaker, what the Leader of the NDP wanted me to do three or four days ago; washed my hands of it, abdicate my responsibility, walk away, pretend it never happened, write-off the $5 million and perhaps do as my colleague the Minister of Tourism would say, add it to the NDP debt clock. I could have done that or I could have done what the Leader of the Liberal Party asked me to do which was the complete opposite.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we are taking a responsible action here and when we determine what exactly has transpired here, and when we determine the appropriate actions that need to be taken; we will take them. Until such a time as we have the information to draw the appropriate conclusions; I am not prepared to stand here and speculate for a bit of political posturing on the other side of the House. [Emphasis added]

Fortunately,  Darin says they can keep their current contracts, and the pay along with it, until they renegotiate or leave their current position whichever comes first:

“At that time we will make sure the salary and compensation package that’s offered is the one that’s approved, not the one that was offered in error,” King said.

Unfortunately, King told that to the Western Star before he said he didn’t have enough information to figure out what “appropriate actions” need to be taken.

Oh well, at least Darin thinks he’s been clear in everything he’s said.

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