The Communication Workers Union is calling on Prime Minister Patrick Manning to set the record straight as it relates to the rumoured sale of Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) to Cable and Wireless.

In a media release yesterday secretary general of the union, Lyle Townsend, asked Manning to confirm or deny publicly whether or not, "the reported sale of TSTT to Cable and Wireless involves the sum of $10,000,000,000 and is to be effected on or before December 31, 2010."

Townsend said there were reports which suggest that the deal has already been worked out by the foreign company.

Townsend further called on the Prime Minister to state whether he or the Government authorised TSTT to retrench 85 employees whose names were on a retrenchment notice received by the union.

He stated that this would be the last time that the union would call on Manning's intervention since they have already written no fewer than six times to him recently asking of the Government's plans for the future of TSTT as it relates to the achievement of developed nation status.

"This will be the last occasion on which we will issue a call for such an intervention on your part. All that is required, honourable Prime Minister, is for you to make an honest and wholehearted public intervention in this shady affair, in the interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago," the release stated.