Cur­tis Williams

cur­tis.williams@guardian.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment re­cov­ered $119 mil­lion of the debt owed to it by Cli­co when it ac­quired CL Ma­rine ac­cord­ing to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

Wind­ing up de­bate last evening in the Low­er House on the 2021 bud­get, Im­bert said the ac­qui­si­tion was both strate­gic and meant to col­lect some of the out­stand­ing mon­ey owed to tax­pay­ers aris­ing from the Cli­co bailout.

“It is part of the debt re­cov­ery from CLI­CO and through the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine we have been able to get an as­set val­ued at $119 mil­lion Madame Speak­er. So we have in ef­fect re­cov­ered $119 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers mon­ey through the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine.” Im­bert boast­ed.

It is the first time the Min­is­ter has said what the com­pa­ny was val­ued at. In the past he has on­ly in­dict­ed the rea­son from the pur­chase.

Yes­ter­day Im­bert re­mind­ed the Par­lia­ment that gov­ern­ment had pur­chased two fast fer­ries for the Trinidad/To­ba­go route, both are near­ing the end of con­struc­tion in Aus­tralia. T&T al­so has on or­der two cape class mil­i­tary ves­sels be­ing con­struct­ed by Austal and due to ar­rive in 2021. The Coast Guard has a num­ber of oth­er ves­sels all of which the Fi­nance Min­is­ter said would ben­e­fit from the pur­chase.

He said; “One of the strate­gic pur­pos­es of this ac­qui­si­tion is to con­sol­i­date the re­pair of our ma­rine fleet at a sin­gle lo­ca­tion at the dock­yard in Cha­gara­mas.”

Im­bert added: “The third ob­jec­tive is di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­cause ship build­ing and ship re­pair is one of the ar­eas we have ear­marked for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.”

In a news re­lease last month Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment bailed out the CL Fi­nan­cial Lim­it­ed Group of Com­pa­nies in-ex­cess of $28 Bil­lion and it be­ing the largest cred­i­tor, filed a wind­ing up pe­ti­tion in the High Court in Ju­ly 2017.

Fol­low­ing this, in Sep­tem­ber 2017, the High Court or­dered that CL Fi­nan­cial Lim­it­ed be wound up un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Com­pa­nies Act and that the in­ter­na­tion­al ac­count­ing firm, Grant Thorn­ton, be ap­point­ed Liq­uida­tors.

He added as a re­sult of the Court Or­der and in keep­ing with this Gov­ern­ment’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust for Trinidad and To­ba­go in the tar­get­ed area of ship build­ing and ship re­pairs, the Gov­ern­ment pur­sued the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine Lim­it­ed and its sub­sidiaries with the Liq­uida­tors, and cre­at­ed the Na­tion­al Ma­rine and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, a new whol­ly owned State en­ter­prise for this pur­pose.

Hav­ing com­plet­ed the ac­qui­si­tion, the Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly ap­point­ed an in­ter­im Board of Di­rec­tors, pend­ing a per­ma­nent board, com­prised of se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials, with an im­me­di­ate man­date to im­ple­ment a prop­er gov­er­nance struc­ture ac­cord­ing to the Com­pa­nies Act and the State En­ter­prise Per­for­mance Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al and a part­ner­ship with a strate­gic pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­ny, such as an ex­pe­ri­enced ship­builder, will be ex­plored in due course.