An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen has been ap­point­ed chair­man of the state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), just weeks af­ter Cab­i­net re­voked the ap­point­ment of Dr Randy Ra­mad­har Singh, who served as lead di­rec­tor for less than a month.

Ramdeen re­ceived his of­fi­cial let­ter of ap­point­ment from En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, along with the rest of the board.

The deputy chair­man is Ram­nar­ine Be­dassie. The oth­er di­rec­tors are Naz­im Sar­jad, Dr Ram­per­sad Moti­lal, Dr Ahamad Khan, Steve See­ta­hal, Ro­hi­ni Ra­mai Pe­ters, Prof David Alexan­der, and Joseph Toney.

Most of the di­rec­tors have ex­pe­ri­ence in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

When con­tact­ed, the min­is­ter con­firmed the ap­point­ments and said he was con­fi­dent that Ramdeen pos­sessed the ex­pe­ri­ence and ca­pa­bil­i­ty to han­dle the as­sign­ment. Mooni­lal de­scribed the new chair­man as an out­stand­ing at­tor­ney who has prac­tised in sev­er­al ar­eas of law, in­clud­ing cor­po­rate law.

“At this time NGC is chal­lenged as every­one knows in terms of sev­er­al le­gal mat­ters and ne­go­ti­a­tions over gas sup­ply con­tracts and so on and many oth­er chal­lenges as well in­clud­ing mat­ters of en­er­gy pol­i­cy and diplo­ma­cy and we are con­vinced that Ramdeen will make a very good and strong show­ing of him­self and work with the min­istry to serve not on­ly the Min­istry of En­er­gy but at a crit­i­cal time the peo­ple of T&T as we re­build the en­er­gy sec­tor,” the min­is­ter stat­ed.

When asked why Ra­mad­har Singh’s po­si­tion was re­voked, Mooni­lal on­ly said, “There was a re­align­ment of tasks.”

Ramdeen had ini­tial­ly been pro­posed for the po­si­tion in ear­ly June, but his name was re­port­ed­ly with­drawn af­ter ob­jec­tions were raised by sev­er­al Cab­i­net mem­bers.

His ap­point­ment now comes de­spite his con­tro­ver­sial le­gal his­to­ry. In 2019, Ramdeen and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan were ar­rest­ed and charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit cor­rup­tion, mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, and mon­ey laun­der­ing. The charges stemmed from al­le­ga­tions of kick­backs in­volv­ing state le­gal briefs dur­ing the 2010-2015 pe­ri­od. Both men were re­leased on bail—Ramdeen on $1.5 mil­lion—af­ter spend­ing sev­er­al days in cus­tody.

The pros­e­cu­tion’s main wit­ness, British King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son, had en­tered a plea deal with the State. How­ev­er, in Oc­to­ber 2022, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions dropped the case af­ter com­pli­ca­tions arose around Nel­son’s in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, ef­fec­tive­ly col­laps­ing one of the most high-pro­file cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tions in re­cent years.

Le­gal com­men­ta­tors de­scribed the mat­ter’s han­dling as a “fi­as­co” and a blow to pub­lic con­fi­dence in the jus­tice sys­tem.

In 2015, Ramdeen and at­tor­ney Varun De­bideen rep­re­sent­ed a client in court for two years, de­spite the client be­ing de­ceased. Ramdeen stat­ed dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings that he was un­aware of the client’s death and on­ly learned of it when the in­struct­ing at­tor­ney for the then at­tor­ney gen­er­al in­formed him. Ramdeen was not pe­nalised.

When ques­tioned about the chair­man’s past and what the Op­po­si­tion would say, Mooni­lal re­spond­ed, “I will ques­tion the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to re­new­able en­er­gy ex­pert Dr Ra­mad­har Singh, but he said he wished not to com­ment at this time.

Young: NGC de­ba­cle em­bar­rass­ing

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­scribed the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy over the NGC board ap­point­ments as not on­ly em­bar­rass­ing but al­so dan­ger­ous.

Young dis­closed that at a time when NGC is prepar­ing to en­gage in crit­i­cal gas sales ne­go­ti­a­tions with ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal play­ers, this lev­el of dis­ar­ray sig­nals in­sta­bil­i­ty and un­der­mines the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

“This is not just a mis­step; it’s a set-up for fail­ure. The UNC Gov­ern­ment clear­ly does not un­der­stand the en­er­gy busi­ness, and worse, it is pre­pared to sac­ri­fice T&T’s fu­ture for po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age. The con­se­quences of this reck­less­ness will not be po­lit­i­cal—they will be eco­nom­ic, struc­tur­al, and long-last­ing,” the for­mer min­is­ter lament­ed.

Fur­ther, he said that as a key play­er in the glob­al en­er­gy mar­ket, T&T can­not af­ford weak, un­qual­i­fied lead­er­ship in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“The in­di­vid­u­als ap­point­ed to gov­ern our state en­er­gy sec­tor en­ti­ties, es­pe­cial­ly NGC, must car­ry proven cred­i­bil­i­ty, good pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tions, and the trust of in­dus­try stake­hold­ers. In­stead, every sin­gle ap­point­ment made by the UNC Gov­ern­ment to state en­er­gy sec­tor boards has been a glar­ing dis­play of in­com­pe­tence and po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age. These ap­point­ments in­spire nei­ther con­fi­dence nor re­spect—lo­cal­ly or in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” Young added.

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NGC is crit­i­cal to the econ­o­my

Econ­o­mist Dr Justin Ram said that NGC plays a piv­otal role not on­ly in gen­er­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue for Gov­ern­ment’s dai­ly op­er­a­tions but al­so as a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to na­tion­al eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

He not­ed that the new NGC chair­man must now fo­cus on cre­at­ing the right en­vi­ron­ment to sup­port the dis­cov­ery and pro­duc­tion of new gas sources, as gas sup­plies have been de­clin­ing in re­cent years.

Ram said there was a press­ing need to in­crease gas pro­duc­tion. The econ­o­mist sug­gest­ed that NGC should al­so ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I think T&T should think about it, and I think the new chair­man has a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er the NGC as a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion owned by T&T now seek­ing to bring gas sup­plies to pro­duc­tion and in­to sup­ply with­in oth­er coun­tries.”

The NGC Group com­pris­es more than 30 sub­sidiaries and af­fil­i­ates in the en­er­gy sec­tor, in­clud­ing Na­tion­al En­er­gy, Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd, NGC Green Com­pa­ny, T&T NGL, and La Brea In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd.