GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

For­mer act­ing pres­i­dent of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co) Dr Av­erne Pan­tin, has re­signed ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 7, 2025, af­ter be­ing sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave last month.

Pan­tin was ap­point­ed to act as pres­i­dent ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 29, 2024.

That was the same day the Plipde­co board an­nounced that its last sub­stan­tive pres­i­dent, Ash­ley Tay­lor, was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

Pan­tin, whose sub­stan­tive po­si­tion was vice-pres­i­dent tech­ni­cal ser­vices, was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 20.

Then in a no­tice of ma­te­r­i­al change post­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change yes­ter­day stat­ed, “Pur­suant to Sec­tion 64(1)(b) of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act 2012, Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed wish­es to an­nounce the fol­low­ing change of se­nior of­fi­cer: Dr Av­erne Pan­tin, vice-pres­i­dent tech­ni­cal ser­vices, re­signed from the cor­po­ra­tion, ef­fec­tive the 7th day of Feb­ru­ary, 2025. The cor­po­ra­tion wish­es to ex­press its grat­i­tude to Dr Pan­tin for his ser­vice.”

The changes at Plipde­co have not on­ly been in the C-suite, the board of the land­lord of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and the op­er­a­tor of the Port of Point Lisas has al­so ex­pe­ri­enced some changes.

In a no­tice pub­lished on Oc­to­ber 11, 2024, Plipde­co an­nounced that Dr Daniel Dook­ie, who was its chair­man, had “ceased to hold a po­si­tion on the board,” at the 57th an­nal meet­ing of the com­pa­ny on Oc­to­ber 8, 2024.

The board said An­nette Wat­tie was ap­point­ed as chair of the com­pa­ny and Stephen Har­ris was ap­point­ed as a di­rec­tor on the board.

In a no­tice is­sued on Sep­tem­ber 25, Plipde­co an­nounced that Haydn Jones re­signed as a di­rec­tor of the com­pa­ny ef­fec­tive Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.

Plipde­co al­so de­layed the hold­ing of its an­nu­al meet­ing, which was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to be held on Ju­ly 11.

The meet­ing was even­tu­al­ly held on Oc­to­ber 8.

Ear­li­er this month, on Feb­ru­ary 7, Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan as­sured that there is “noth­ing ab­nor­mal” about the sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tive changes to the Plipde­co board and lead­er­ship team over the last sev­en months.

He made the com­ments at an event held at Plipde­co House, Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, which recog­nised Plipde­co for re­ceiv­ing the Caribbean Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion Port-of-the-Year award for 2024.

For the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, Plipde­co de­clared af­ter tax prof­it of $180.40 mil­lion, a 274 per cent in­crease com­pared to the $48.23 mil­lion the com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

The com­pa­ny’s rev­enue for the nine-month pe­ri­od in 2024 was six per cent high­er at $285.07 mil­lion than for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

In its fi­nan­cial re­port for the pe­ri­od, Plipde­co said, “This sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in prof­itabil­i­ty re­sult­ed from a net im­pact of in­creased rev­enue cou­pled with a de­cline in some of our op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es as well as the pos­i­tive im­pact from a re­ver­sal of bad debts ex­pense which was pre­vi­ous­ly recog­nised...

“Based on our present per­for­mance for 2024 we ex­pect to ex­ceed both our bud­get­ed and pri­or year per­for­mance. As the year con­tin­ues, we re­main stead­fast in our re­solve to mak­ing our 2024 per­for­mance to be a for­mi­da­ble one.”