An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers
@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al En­er­gy pres­i­dent Dr Ver­non Pal­too will be pro­ceed­ing on ear­ly re­tire­ment, bring­ing an end to more than two decades of ser­vice to the state-owned en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ta­tor.
How­ev­er, sources told the Trinidad Guardian that Pal­too was in fact forced in­to pre-re­tire­ment leave, and when Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen was con­tact­ed, he said, “I am not aware of this and I am in the mid­dle of a meet­ing at this time.”

Na­tion­al En­er­gy is a sub­sidiary of whol­ly State-owned NGC.

In an in­ter­nal memo to staff yes­ter­day, Pal­too said the de­ci­sion fol­lowed “care­ful and de­lib­er­ate re­flec­tion,” de­scrib­ing his years at the or­gan­i­sa­tion as one of the great­est ho­n­ours of his pro­fes­sion­al life.

He joined Na­tion­al En­er­gy in 2004 and served as pres­i­dent for near­ly 13 years, guid­ing the com­pa­ny through both growth and chal­lenges in the evolv­ing glob­al en­er­gy land­scape.

Re­flect­ing on his tenure, Pal­too praised the re­silience, pur­pose, and com­mit­ment to na­tion­al ser­vice demon­strat­ed by his team.

“To­geth­er, we have shaped an in­sti­tu­tion ground­ed in char­ac­ter, progress and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. What I val­ue most from these years is not on­ly what we ac­com­plished, but how we ac­com­plished it through a spir­it of gen­uine col­lab­o­ra­tion, mu­tu­al re­spect, and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to a high­er pur­pose,” he said.

Pal­too ac­knowl­edged both achieve­ments and ad­ver­si­ty dur­ing his lead­er­ship, stress­ing that Na­tion­al En­er­gy had re­mained an­chored by a shared be­lief in the pow­er of col­lec­tive ef­fort and its mis­sion to sup­port T&T’s de­vel­op­ment. He added that he was leav­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion with pride in its strong foun­da­tion and the en­dur­ing lega­cy en­trust­ed to those who re­main.

He con­firmed that he will pro­ceed on va­ca­tion leave from Sep­tem­ber 29, 2025, lead­ing up to his of­fi­cial re­tire­ment in April 2026. Dur­ing this tran­si­tion, vice pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Ser­vices and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment, Mar­cia May­nard, will as­sume the role of act­ing pres­i­dent ef­fec­tive Sep­tem­ber 29.

Pal­too end­ed his farewell on a note of grat­i­tude. “Thank you for the priv­i­lege of serv­ing with you. It has been a tru­ly mean­ing­ful and re­ward­ing jour­ney, one that I will al­ways car­ry with me.”

Guardian Me­dia was told that staff were dev­as­tat­ed by this move, and many were cry­ing.

A com­pa­ny source said, “The com­pa­ny’s high per­for­mance was un­der Pal­too’s lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing its pro­fil­ing both here and in the re­gion.”