Whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) paid $2.1 bil­lion dol­lars in div­i­dends to the Gov­ern­ment be­tween 2018 and 2023.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert dis­closed the fig­ure in re­sponse to a ques­tion posed by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark in the Up­per House yes­ter­day.

Im­bert gave a break­down of the da­ta with com­par­isons to the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion from 2010 to 2015, when NGC paid out $13.7 bil­lion in div­i­dends.

The is­sue of the div­i­dends paid by NGC to its 100 per cent share­hold­er, Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, has been the sub­ject of sev­er­al heat­ed po­lit­i­cal ex­changes be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Jan­u­ary 25, 2019, Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship “took” $12.94 bil­lion from the NGC be­tween 2010 and 2015.

Re­fer­ring to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “He did not tell us that with­in the first 10 days in of­fice, still be­ing in fis­cal ’15, but un­der their watch, that they took out $493 mil­lion in div­i­dends on Sep­tem­ber 16th, just with­in 10 days of of­fice. So they have been mis­lead­ing us with this all the time.”

Speak­ing af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Jan­u­ary 2019, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert told Par­lia­ment the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship had tak­en a to­tal of $36.1 bil­lion out of NGC, com­pris­ing both div­i­dends and tax­es.