The great­est achieve­ment of the out­go­ing chair­man of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) Ger­ry Brooks was his abil­i­ty to re­duce the claims against the com­pa­ny, $4.2 bil­lion, to man­age­able pro­por­tions ac­cord­ing to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan.

Khan said the claims re­sult­ed from the “tar­di­ness and neg­li­gence of the UNC gov­ern­ment for not ne­go­ti­at­ing a new gas con­tract.”

In re­port­ing to Par­lia­ment on Brooks' de­ci­sion to re­sign as Chair­man of the NGC and its group of com­pa­nies the Min­is­ter ar­gued: “He faced many chal­lenges, the most sig­nif­i­cant of which re­sult­ed from the tar­di­ness and neg­li­gence of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress for not ne­go­ti­at­ing new gas sales con­tracts, which left him with a bur­den of over $4.2bil­lion in claims. He has brought it down to man­age­able pro­por­tions. That is his great­est achieve­ment.”

When Brooks as­sumed of­fice the NGC was fac­ing ma­jor law suits from com­pa­nies on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate for the lack of pro­vi­sion of gas. Trinidad and To­ba­go has been fac­ing nat­ur­al gas cur­tail­ment and as ag­gre­ga­tor the NGC has been faced with lit­i­ga­tion from the down­stream sec­tor be­cause the state en­ter­prise had gas agree­ments with the up­stream pro­duc­ers that did not con­tain penal­ties for fail­ure to pro­vide the NGC with their con­tract­ed quan­ti­ties of gas.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter promised the post of NGC chair­man will be filled in the “short­est or­der” and there’s enough depth at the NGC to fill the space Brooks will be leav­ing.

Khan re­spond­ed on the is­sue in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing queries by UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal on Brooks’ re­cent res­ig­na­tion which will be ef­fec­tive month end. He’d filled the post since Oc­to­ber 2015. Brooks was ap­point­ed Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice last year by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in En­tre­pre­neur­ship and In­no­va­tion.

Apart from lend­ing sup­port to UWI, his res­ig­na­tion al­so stat­ed he’ll be re­turn­ing to law and fam­i­ly prac­tice which he in­tends ex­pand­ing, Khan not­ed.

Mooni­lal had asked if Brooks’ de­par­ture will pose any added chal­lenges for NGC go­ing for­ward, giv­en chal­lenges in the en­er­gy sec­tor, and when a new NGC chair­man might be ex­pect­ed.

Khan replied, “Ob­vi­ous­ly one of the most im­por­tant state sec­tor po­si­tions is chair­man of NGC and that po­si­tion will be filled in the short­est or­der with the per­son with the re­quired com­pe­ten­cies. Mr Brooks will be missed, (but) I think there’s enough suc­ces­sion, there’s enough depth at the NGC to fill the space he’ll be leav­ing. And most of the ne­go­ti­a­tions that the Prime Min­is­ter cham­pi­oned when we were abroad (re­cent­ly) were Gov­ern­ment ne­go­ti­a­tions,”

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter added, “Ser­vice on state boards are vol­un­tary po­si­tions for peo­ple will­ing to bring their skills, tal­ent and ex­per­tise to bear in the per­for­mance of na­tion­al ser­vice—it’s not a job...in that con­text, Mr Brooks was one such per­son.”

Khan not­ed Brooks was an at­tor­ney, Law As­so­ci­a­tion vice chair­man and for­mer Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer at ANSA McAl.

“He brought to the task, ex­pe­ri­ence in law , ne­go­ti­a­tion and com­mer­cial eval­u­a­tion. Gov­ern­ment and the En­er­gy Min­istry want to thank him for a well served time as chair­man of NGC.”

Af­ter serv­ing from 2015, Brooks’ re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age at­tract­ed con­tro­ver­sy when Gov­ern­ment—in Par­lia­ment in 2016- con­firmed Brooks earned a month­ly to­tal of $82,500 in board fees and trav­el­ling al­lowances from the ten en­er­gy com­pa­ny boards he head­ed and served on. Then En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre had said Brooks was paid a to­tal of $73,000 a month from board fees for the ten boards and, in ad­di­tion, a to­tal of $9,500 a month in trav­el­ling al­lowances.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­es­sar sub­se­quent­ly con­demned the sit­u­a­tion of mul­ti­ple boards and fees, al­leg­ing Brooks was the PNM’s “Calder Hart.”

The Fi­nance Min­istry lat­er re­viewed it and Brooks’ month­ly salary from NGC state boards was dropped from $82,500 to $69,000 and his trav­el­ling al­lowances were dis­con­tin­ued.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said Brooks asked that the al­lowances he’d been re­ceiv­ing be dis­con­tin­ued im­me­di­ate­ly. Brooks al­so re­signed from the board of Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Ltd that April.