Gail Alexan­der

Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny chair­man Ger­ry Brooks' month­ly salary from NGC state boards has dropped from $82,500 to $69,000 and his trav­el­ling al­lowances have been dis­con­tin­ued, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said yes­ter­day.

Brooks al­so re­signed from the board of Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Ltd in April, Im­bert added.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter re­vealed the cuts in Par­lia­ment re­ply­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MP David Lee.

Last month in the Sen­ate, re­ply­ing to op­po­si­tion ques­tions, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre had con­firmed that Brooks earned a month­ly to­tal of $82,500 in board fees and trav­el­ling al­lowances from the ten en­er­gy com­pa­ny boards he heads and serves on.

Olivierre 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."

At a May post-cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing Im­bert had promised to re­view the mul­ti­ple po­si­tions, fees and perks. Re­ply­ing to a Guardian ques­tion on this last week Fri­day, he'd said he was still re­view­ing it then.

Yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to op­po­si­tion queries, new fig­ures emerged when Im­bert de­tailed the list of chairs/di­rec­tor­ships Brooks has held since Sep­tem­ber 2015 to date, and the fees.

He said Brooks earns chair­man­ship fees of $10,000 each from NGC, Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion and Phoenix Gas Proces­sors.

He al­so earns chair­man­ship fees of $6,500 each from La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (LAB­DI­CO), NGC-CNG, NGC Pipeline Com­pa­ny, TT-NGL and NGC Petro­chem­i­cals Ltd.

Im­bert said Brooks earned no di­rec­tor­ship fees from NGC Nether­lands, NGC/ENP In­vest­ments (Nether­lands), NGC/ENP Nether­lands Co-Op­er­a­tive.

He said the fees from NGC boards to­talled $69,000 month­ly.

Im­bert not­ed Brooks al­so earned di­rec­tor­ship fees of $4,000 and $3,200, re­spec­tive­ly, from Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd and NEL Pow­er Hold­ings.

Im­bert said Brooks is al­so on TSTT's board as NEL's rep­re­sen­ta­tive with a $5,000 fee.

But Im­bert said, ef­fec­tive May 25, Brooks asked that the trav­el­ling al­lowances he'd been re­ceiv­ing be dis­con­tin­ued im­me­di­ate­ly.

Asked by the Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar if Brooks al­so re­ceived phone al­lowances, Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment was re­view­ing al­lowances.

Af­ter it was dis­closed that Brooks' month­ly NGC board fees were cut from $82,500 to $69,000, Im­bert–re­spond­ing to queries from Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal–ar­gued that the for­mer FCB chair­man un­der the PP's tenure took home $71,000 month­ly from var­i­ous FCB en­ti­ties. Im­bert said that was the high­est fee lev­el he'd ever seen.

COST OF GHANA TRIP

On oth­er op­po­si­tion queries, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley said NGC's Brooks was among his del­e­ga­tion for his re­cent Ghana trip.

Oth­ers in­clud­ed En­er­gy Ad­vis­er Ken Julien, Petrotrin chair­man An­drew Jupiter, En­er­gy Min­istry Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Sel­wyn Lash­ley, the Min­is­ters of En­er­gy, For­eign Af­fairs and of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's Of­fice, the PM's press sec­re­tary, a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, a video­g­ra­ph­er, pro­to­col of­fi­cer and two se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

Row­ley said his re­cent trips to the US, Ghana and the UK cost $1.9 mil­lion which, he said, rep­re­sent­ed sub­stan­tial sav­ings over the $11 mil­lion cost of a sim­i­lar trip un­der the PP.

He said his del­e­ga­tion had a "bare bones" com­ple­ment and had no ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers, "no ex­tras, no pow­der puff man," and that first class trav­el was al­lo­cat­ed on­ly to those for whom it was ap­pro­pri­ate.