Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr David Lee yes­ter­day called on Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young to stop play­ing the blame game and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the loss of $1.3 bil­lion by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T.

On Thurs­day at a news con­fer­ence, Young said the cur­rent chair­man and the board of NGC are not to be blamed for the bil­lion-dol­lar loss in­curred by the whol­ly state-owned nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny.

Young said the loss by NGC in 2023 was pri­mar­i­ly at­trib­ut­able to the pur­chase by it of the 39 per cent share­hold­ing in Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd from US en­er­gy gi­ant Cono­coPhillips, which he said was at an over­val­ued price in 2013.

"Sec­ond­ly, one of the worst con­tracts a gov­ern­ment has en­tered in­to any en­er­gy sec­tor in 2014/2015 with CG­CL, which con­tin­ues to cost us, the cit­i­zens, bil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es, and will con­tin­ue the ac­coun­tants say. And that is the truth as to why NGC has suf­fered these loss­es," said Young, who point­ed out that NGC had been on course to record a prof­it if these con­tracts were not in place.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, Lee, the UNC’s shad­ow en­er­gy min­is­ter, said it was ut­ter­ly em­bar­rass­ing that de­spite be­ing in of­fice for al­most a decade, the on­ly an­swer that Young and the Gov­ern­ment have for this na­tion’s en­er­gy col­lapse is “blame the UNC”.

“If we are to be­lieve the de­lud­ed propo­si­tion put for­ward by Min­is­ter Young that a loss by the NGC in 2023 is due to the UNC's de­ci­sions in 2013, then are the prof­its of the NGC for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 & 2022 due to the UNC? That's the in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­leng­ing, bereft of com­mon-sense ra­tio­nale Min­is­ter Young wants the coun­try to di­gest,” Lee lament­ed.

He be­moaned that gov­er­nance of a coun­try and gov­er­nance of the en­er­gy sec­tor is not a game of “snakes and lad­ders”.

“It is about tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for all that hap­pens un­der your lead­er­ship, it is about ac­cept­ing the cri­sis that has hap­pened un­der your Gov­ern­ment and cor­rect­ing it. All of which this Gov­ern­ment has failed to do in nine years.”

Facts will al­ways be more pow­er­ful than Min­is­ter Young's reg­u­lar fic­tion, Lee said, not­ing that the facts show that Min­is­ter Young must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the low­est oil pro­duc­tion in 50 years.

“The facts show that Min­is­ter Young must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the low­est gas pro­duc­tion in over a decade. The facts show that this Gov­ern­ment must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the most plant clo­sures in our his­to­ry.

“With a track record lined with sig­nif­i­cant fail­ure, cri­sis, and clo­sure in the en­er­gy sec­tor, emerg­ing from the hatch­et job on Petrotrin, nu­mer­ous failed bid rounds to the col­lapse of Ni­quan, no log­i­cal cit­i­zen can ac­cept that the NGC's fail­ings are due to a past Ad­min­is­tra­tion. It is sim­ply yet an­oth­er blun­der of this gov­ern­ment,” Lee added.

In his re­port on the com­pa­ny's au­dit­ed 2023 fi­nan­cials, NGC chair­man Joseph Ish­mael Khan said the $1.3 bil­lion loss for last year "re­flects the im­pact of a sharp re­duc­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­mod­i­ty prices, and a one-time, non-cash im­pair­ment of $1.5 bil­lion for good­will."

Good­will is the dif­fer­ence be­tween the pur­chase price of a com­pa­ny and the fair mar­ket val­ue of the tar­get com­pa­ny's as­sets.

In ex­plain­ing the good­will im­pair­ment, NGC ex­ec­u­tives at a news con­fer­ence on De­cem­ber 12 said in 2013, the com­pa­ny paid Cono­coPhillips $3.8 bil­lion (US$600 mil­lion) to ac­quire the US en­er­gy com­pa­ny's 39 per cent stake in Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors (PPG­PL).

NGC said it record­ed good­will of $2.3 bil­lion on the ac­qui­si­tion of the 39 per cent stake, which sug­gests that the fair val­ue of PPG­PL's as­sets in 2013 was $1.5 bil­lion.