The Ve­hi­cle Main­te­nance Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (VM­COTT) is set to ex­plore new rev­enue streams and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cies as part of a re­newed strat­e­gy to strength­en its vi­a­bil­i­ty and rel­e­vance.

This was a cen­tral fo­cus dur­ing an of­fi­cial vis­it to­day by Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, Eli Za­k­our.

Min­is­ter Za­k­our, ac­com­pa­nied by the Min­istry’s Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary and se­nior of­fi­cials, met with VM­COTT CEO Natasha Prince and key de­part­men­tal heads in Op­er­a­tions, Fi­nance, Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, and Health, Safe­ty and En­vi­ron­ment.

The dis­cus­sions marked the start of strate­gic talks aimed at repo­si­tion­ing VM­COTT with­in the pub­lic sec­tor land­scape.

In ad­di­tion to rev­enue di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, the meet­ing ad­dressed cost op­ti­mi­sa­tion, reaf­firm­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion’s man­date, and build­ing strate­gic part­ner­ships with oth­er gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies. 

Min­is­ter Za­k­our un­der­scored the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing VM­COTT’s long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty through in­no­va­tion and in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Af­ter the board­room ses­sion, the Min­is­ter toured the Cor­po­ra­tion’s heavy- and light-ve­hi­cle work­shops and body shop, ob­serv­ing the mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy and sys­tems that dri­ve its op­er­a­tions. He al­so took time to greet staff and gain a ground-lev­el view of day-to-day ac­tiv­i­ties.

A key theme of the vis­it was the pro­posed repo­si­tion­ing of VM­COTT as the cen­tral au­thor­i­ty for pub­lic sec­tor fleet man­age­ment. 

“We must re­assert VM­COTT’s man­date as the State’s sole fleet-man­age­ment au­thor­i­ty,” said Min­is­ter Za­k­our. 

“Cen­tral­is­ing our pub­lic-sec­tor ve­hi­cle main­te­nance will dri­ve greater lev­els of ac­count­abil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy, while de­liv­er­ing cost sav­ings and stan­dard lev­els of ser­vice ex­cel­lence.”