Seek­ing to clear his com­pa­ny’s ma­ligned rep­u­ta­tion af­ter it was named in a mil­lion-dol­lar food bill scan­dal at Petrotrin, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Su­perb Cater­ers Wayne Ali yes­ter­day pro­duced ev­i­dence show­ing he was paid less than $7,000 for two days of cater­ing last Oc­to­ber.

The in­voic­es dis­put­ed a doc­u­ment pro­duced by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Ger­ard Ramdeen in the House on Tues­day which claimed Su­perb Cater­ers was paid $23, 770 for cater­ing for two meet­ings at the Pointe-a-Pierre Staff Club on Oc­to­ber 11 and 17, 2018.

In an in­ter­view with the me­dia, Ali said he did not know where Ramdeen got his fig­ures. How­ev­er, he said his com­pa­ny’s records, signed by Petrotrin, showed that on Oc­to­ber 17 he catered 25 box lunch­es and a bev­er­age for 25 peo­ple at a cost of $625 and 15 box lunch­es at $60 which cost $900. Copies of this in­voice were sup­plied to the me­dia.

On Oc­to­ber 11, Ali said an in­voice from his com­pa­ny showed he pro­vid­ed 120 box lunch­es with a bev­er­age at $25 each which cost $3,000, as well as 26 box lunch­es at a cost of $60 each, which amount­ed to $1,560.

Say­ing he did not want to get in­volved in pol­i­tics, Ali said he was up­set be­cause many peo­ple had since called his com­pa­ny ask­ing why he was charg­ing Petrotrin $1,000 for a plate of food when in fact his price was $25.

“I am dis­turbed when I saw the news where Ger­ald Ramdeen said a cater­ing com­pa­ny got $27,770 for two sets of lunch­es. The Guardian named the com­pa­ny as Su­perb Cater­ers. I am look­ing at the bills. It is nowhere close to that.”

Say­ing he has been do­ing busi­ness with Petrotrin for over 20 years, Ali said he has nev­er charged any­one $1,000 a plate for food.

“I have been in the cater­ing busi­ness for over 25 years. I am not in­volved in any scan­dal. I am not in­to pol­i­tics and this is a po­lit­i­cal is­sue. Politi­cians are sup­posed to be ho­n­ourable but now I have doubts,” Ali said.

He added, “I am now try­ing to clear my name. I worked hard to build this com­pa­ny and to say these things is a to­tal fab­ri­ca­tion. My com­pa­ny is not in­volved in any scan­dal.”

Ali said Petrotrin al­so owes him mon­ey for cater­ing ser­vices for as far back as 2013 and 2014.

Asked whether he was wor­ried that he will not get his mon­ey, Ali said the thought had crossed his mind. How­ev­er, he said he was told that what­ev­er com­pa­ny is set up to re­place Petrotrin will ho­n­our the debts.

Ali said the defama­tion of his com­pa­ny is now be­ing pe­rused by his at­tor­neys. Asked whether he was pur­su­ing le­gal ac­tion, Ali said his lawyers were still in dis­cus­sions.

He al­so said he de­pend­ed on cater­ing for his liveli­hood.

“I have a staff to pay and I have to sur­vive. It is not fair that my com­pa­ny is be­ing im­pli­cat­ed in some­thing that is to­tal­ly false,” Ali said.

He not­ed that so­cial me­dia was drag­ging his com­pa­ny’s name through the mud be­cause of Ramdeen’s un­found­ed claims.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ramdeen said the doc­u­ments he pro­vid­ed show­ing the $27,770 in­voic­es came from Petrotrin’s Fi­nance De­part­ment. Ramdeen said if Petrotrin of­fi­cials were us­ing Su­perb Cater­ers to swin­dle mon­ey from Petrotrin then this was a mat­ter Ali’s lawyers should take up. With re­gard to Ali’s claim of defama­tion, Ramdeen said Ali was free to take the mat­ter to court.

Mean­while, an in­voice ob­tained by the T&T Guardian from John­son Ca­ma­cho and Singh al­so showed that $17,083.13 was paid for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices for the in­cor­po­ra­tion of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing, Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny and Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed. This in­clud­ed at­tend­ing to chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet sign­ing of doc­u­ments, fil­ing at the com­pa­ny’s reg­istry and re­ceipt of reg­is­tered in­cor­po­ra­tion doc­u­ments, ob­tain­ing com­pa­ny’s seal, prepar­ing by­laws and prepar­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al meet­ing min­utes.

Ramdeen, who al­so spoke of this trans­ac­tion in the Sen­ate, had claimed that Petrotrin paid the law firm $168, 988 for this process, which he de­scribed as a few min­utes of work.