GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

There are more in­ter­nal rum­blings at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co), fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of the ex­ten­sion of leave of two man­agers.

A no­tice of ma­te­r­i­al change post­ed yes­ter­day on the web­site of the T&T Stock Ex­change, stat­ed that pur­suant to Sec­tion 64(1)(b) of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act 2012, Plipde­co wished to an­nounce the fol­low­ing change of se­nior of­fi­cers:

Ef­fec­tive May 3, 2025, the pe­ri­od of ad­min­is­tra­tive leave of Niegel Subi­ah, vice-pres­i­dent - busi­ness ser­vices, is ex­tend­ed from May 2, 2025, to June 2, 2025.

Ef­fec­tive May 3, 2025, the pe­ri­od of ad­min­is­tra­tive leave of Richelle Ly­man, cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, is ex­tend­ed from May 2, 2025 to June 2, 2025.

Ef­fec­tive May 3, 2025, Deera Goora­hoo-Ramdeo - man­ag­er fi­nance, would con­tin­ue to act in the po­si­tion of act­ing vice-pres­i­dent - busi­ness ser­vices un­til the June 2, 2025.

Last month, al­so in a no­tice of ma­te­r­i­al change post­ed by the T&T Stock Ex­change on April 29, Shel­don Bap­tiste was ap­point­ed as a di­rec­tor on the board, ef­fec­tive April 25.

In­ter­nal is­sues at Plipde­co have been sur­fac­ing since last year.

For­mer pres­i­dent Earnest Ash­ley Tay­lor was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave in Ju­ly 2024, fol­low­ing which he sub­se­quent­ly re­tired in De­cem­ber of that year.

Vice-pres­i­dent of tech­ni­cal ser­vices Dr Av­erne Pan­tin was ap­point­ed as act­ing pres­i­dent but he re­signed ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 7, 2025.

The changes at Plipde­co have not on­ly been in the C-suite, how­ev­er, as the board of the land­lord of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate and the op­er­a­tor of the Port of Point Lisas have 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 an­nu­al 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 had 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 for Ju­ly 11. The meet­ing was even­tu­al­ly held on Oc­to­ber 8.

On Feb­ru­ary 7 this year, then works and trans­port min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan had as­sured there was “noth­ing ab­nor­mal” about the sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tive changes to the Plipde­co board and lead­er­ship team over the pre­vi­ous sev­en months.

For the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024, Plipde­co de­clared an 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.