SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Ltd (NS­D­SL) is mov­ing to write off a $1.6 mil­lion debt from its fi­nan­cial records for cater­ing ser­vices pro­vid­ed to gov­ern­ment min­istries more than 12 years ago.

A 2022 Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee (PAEC) re­port on the NS­D­SL’s fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2016 to 2019 re­vealed that the state-owned lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny was owed $1.8 mil­lion for meals sup­plied to state agen­cies and min­istries.

One re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion re­fused to pay, stat­ing that they thought the meals were a do­na­tion by the NS­D­SL dur­ing a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter in 2012.

The com­mit­tee, chaired by Wade Mark, heard that on­ly one State agency had set­tled their bill.

The 90-page re­port showed be­tween 2015 and 2016 the NS­D­SL was owed $1,874,102 for cater­ing ser­vices. Up to 2019 the com­pa­ny still had an out­stand­ing debt of $1,694,372.

At­tempts to col­lect the pay­ments up to Sep­tem­ber 2021 al­so proved fu­tile. Three years lat­er, the mon­ey has not yet been re­cov­ered.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T and Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) were list­ed among the min­istries and state agen­cies that owed NS­D­SL for the cater­ing ser­vice pro­vid­ed.

The Sun­day Guardian was told on­ly the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T had set­tled its out­stand­ing bill.

NS­D­SL was in­cor­po­rat­ed in 2002 to man­age the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme on be­half of the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had asked the NS­D­SL to pro­vide them with meals. They were not sup­posed to have been billed. If they ask NS­D­SL to cater, they are not sup­posed to charge them. Re­mem­ber they are NS­D­SL’s line min­istry. That is why it is an out­stand­ing sum,” a source at the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said.

The NS­D­SL al­so do­nat­ed meals to the OPM for which they were in­voiced.

“Many of the heads at these min­istries and state agen­cies are no longer there. They have moved on. Some can not even be con­tact­ed. This hap­pened un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

The source said the NS­D­SL had an ac­coun­tant who billed every State en­ti­ty, in­clud­ing those who were giv­en do­nat­ed food.

“Once it is billed you can’t do any­thing about it. It is statute-barred now. So NS­D­SL will soon write to the Min­istry of Fi­nance and Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ask­ing that it be re­moved from their books. This debt has been lin­ger­ing for 12 years. It is far too long.”

The source said the In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Reg­u­la­tion Stan­dard re­quires en­ti­ties to recog­nise loss­es for all fi­nan­cial as­sets held at amor­tized cost or fair val­ue.

The NS­D­SL will be au­dit­ed this month fol­low­ing which let­ters will be sent to the min­istries ask­ing for the debt to be cleared from its fi­nan­cial ac­counts.

The re­port stat­ed that in 2012 the NS­D­SL fo­cused its at­ten­tion on gen­er­at­ing in­come and made rep­re­sen­ta­tion to min­istries to utilise its cater­ing ser­vice. The NS­D­SL col­lab­o­rat­ed with the OPM to show­case lo­cal cui­sine at two func­tions.

“The in­ten­tion was to gen­er­ate fu­ture busi­ness from min­istries while of­fer­ing lo­cal pro­duce, cou­pled with low­er prices,” the re­port stat­ed.

The ven­ture was suc­cess­ful as min­istries con­tract­ed the NS­D­SL to pro­vide cater­ing ser­vices.

“There­after, busi­ness was re­ceived from the Min­istry of Health, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Sport.”

How­ev­er, the ini­tia­tive was short-lived as NS­D­SL no­ticed min­istries were be­com­ing delin­quent in set­tling their debts. Not want­i­ng to con­tin­ue us­ing its sub­ven­tion to set­tle its debts to its cater­ers, the NS­D­SL dis­con­tin­ued the ser­vice.

“The amounts due from those delin­quent state agen­cies were still re­flect­ed on NS­D­SL’s ac­counts de­spite the com­pa­ny be­ing told by its ex­ter­nal au­di­tors to write them off,” the re­port re­vealed.

The re­port al­so stat­ed that the NS­D­SL was called up­on to pro­vide meals for first re­sponse teams and Diego Mar­tin res­i­dents who were im­pact­ed by the flood­ing and land­slides in Au­gust 2012 from the pass­ing of Trop­i­cal Storm Isaac.

The NS­D­SL at­tempt­ed to get pay­ments for the meals pro­vid­ed by billing the ODPM.

“The ODPM di­rect­ed the NS­D­SL to the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion who in­di­cat­ed that they thought the meals were a do­na­tion from the NS­D­SL. At­tempts to re­cov­er this mon­ey have proven to be un­suc­cess­ful,” the re­port said.

The NS­D­SL made tele­phone calls, sent emails and writ­ten cor­re­spon­dence to col­lect all out­stand­ing funds owed up to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2021. NS­D­SL’s CEO Sta­cy Bar­ran told the PAEC let­ters were writ­ten to every­one who promised to look at it and take ac­tion.

The com­mit­tee asked the NS­D­SL to sub­mit a sta­tus up­date on the com­pa­ny’s at­tempt to re­trieve the out­stand­ing monies be­fore the end of Au­gust 2022. In re­sponse, the NS­D­SL in­di­cat­ed that ef­forts were made to col­lect the ar­rears.

“Let­ters were sent again to the en­ti­ties. A meet­ing with the ODPM was al­so re­quest­ed to dis­cuss out­stand­ing monies,” the NS­D­SL told the PAEC.

NS­D­SL promised to take the mat­ter be­fore its board of di­rec­tors again “for a de­ci­sion to be tak­en on the way for­ward. The ex­ter­nal au­di­tor has sug­gest­ed a write-off with per­mis­sion from the Min­istry of Fi­nance,” the NS­D­SL said in its re­sponse.

The Sun­day Guardian sent a list of ques­tions to Bar­ran but she did not re­spond.