Energy Minster Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan said she was aware the service station linked to her Cabinet colleague, Arts and Multiculturalism Minister Winston Peters, owed $1 million to State-owned National Petroleum and advised Peters to “clear up the issue”.
Seepersad-Bachan, who returned from an official trip to Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday night, said the Neil Gosine-led board of directors informed her as a “matter of courtesy” that her Ministerial colleague accrued a million-dollar debt earlier this year.
Seepersad-Bachan attended the 12th Ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and sits as the alternate president of the group.
In a telephone interview yesterday, the Energy Minister said she never instructed the board to conceal or cover up the issue, but instead told them to carry out the normal methods of recovering funds from delinquent dealers. “Let’s be clear. I cannot instruct the board on any issue, so I told them to do what they normally do to recover the money from any dealer,” she said.
She said to her knowledge, this lack of payment between the (Winston and Marva) WM Peters and Sons gas station, located in Couva, and NP was “several years old”.
“It is actually the new board, under the new Government, that took action to recover the money and finalise the situation,” she said.
“It is not under my purview to recover funds for NP. That is a board and management decision. How can I get involved in debt recovery?” she asked.
In a Sunday Express investigative report, NP board minutes revealed that February 11, a directive was given to issue a final letter to WM Peters and Sons service station, giving them seven days to clear the debt and threatening to take further action.
Asked why the instructions to deliver a “final letter” to force settlement was never carried out as the story claimed, Seepersad-Bachan said that it was. She said the final letter demanding settlement was sent to the gas station, but she could not say when.
“And NP did receive a reply from the station. As I understand it, the owners queried the amount owed and now the two parties are trying to resolve the dispute over the final figure,” she said.
She said there a critical issue regarding the a malfunctioning gauge, a Veeder-Root gas meter, which measures the volume of fuel delivered and sold at the service station.
“I am not trying to take up for anyone, but as I understand it, there is a question about just how much money is actually owed,” Seepersad-Bachan said.
The Minister said a Veeder-Root gas meter was installed and maintained by NP at the service station and if there were any discrepancies between the deliveries and the sales, the service station was well within its rights to query the issue.
Bobby Ramlochan, acting chief executive officer at NP, said yesterday the Veeder-Root system was now being compared to their “dip” check logs, where metal rods measure the fuel delivered by tankers to help balance the discrepancy in figures.
“If we checked the tankers here and it had, say, $40,000 worth of fuel, her (Marva Peters’s) Veeder-Root meter was only reading a portion of that and that went on for six years,” he said.
He said the discrepancy was only discovered late last year when the new board carried out an audit.
Ramlochan said NP did not stop deliveries to that station when the discrepancy surfaced because once a station had a dispute with the company, NP would extend a line of credit to compensate for outstanding payments until the issue was resolved.
“If you have a disputed balance, you will get time to work it out,” he said in a telephone interview. He said the board met with Peters twice and was currently reconciling their figures with the station’s owner. “It is not that she didn’t pay, it is not that she got extra credit,” he said.
Ramlochan said this was strictly a board and management issue and there was no reason for the Energy Minister to get involved.
“This should not have even reached to the Minister. She has no authority to instruct the board to do anything about collecting payments,” he said.
In April, former chief executive officer Richard Callender was dismissed for allegedly extending a multi-million dollar credit facility to a single station in South Trinidad. Seepersad-Bachan said the Peters issue is “completely different” from the Callender issue.
She said in that issue, there had to be a “system over-ride” to allow for that line of credit to continue, while this issue was being sorted out and could be cleared up soon. Ramlochan said there is one more meeting planned to sort out the discrepancy and the outstanding payments would be cleared up “soon”.
Repeated attempts to contact both Minister Peters and his wife, Marva, who operates the station, were unsuccessful. www.bgocled.com
Seepersad-Bachan, who returned from an official trip to Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday night, said the Neil Gosine-led board of directors informed her as a “matter of courtesy” that her Ministerial colleague accrued a million-dollar debt earlier this year.
Seepersad-Bachan attended the 12th Ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and sits as the alternate president of the group.
In a telephone interview yesterday, the Energy Minister said she never instructed the board to conceal or cover up the issue, but instead told them to carry out the normal methods of recovering funds from delinquent dealers. “Let’s be clear. I cannot instruct the board on any issue, so I told them to do what they normally do to recover the money from any dealer,” she said.
She said to her knowledge, this lack of payment between the (Winston and Marva) WM Peters and Sons gas station, located in Couva, and NP was “several years old”.
“It is actually the new board, under the new Government, that took action to recover the money and finalise the situation,” she said.
“It is not under my purview to recover funds for NP. That is a board and management decision. How can I get involved in debt recovery?” she asked.
In a Sunday Express investigative report, NP board minutes revealed that February 11, a directive was given to issue a final letter to WM Peters and Sons service station, giving them seven days to clear the debt and threatening to take further action.
Asked why the instructions to deliver a “final letter” to force settlement was never carried out as the story claimed, Seepersad-Bachan said that it was. She said the final letter demanding settlement was sent to the gas station, but she could not say when.
“And NP did receive a reply from the station. As I understand it, the owners queried the amount owed and now the two parties are trying to resolve the dispute over the final figure,” she said.
She said there a critical issue regarding the a malfunctioning gauge, a Veeder-Root gas meter, which measures the volume of fuel delivered and sold at the service station.
“I am not trying to take up for anyone, but as I understand it, there is a question about just how much money is actually owed,” Seepersad-Bachan said.
The Minister said a Veeder-Root gas meter was installed and maintained by NP at the service station and if there were any discrepancies between the deliveries and the sales, the service station was well within its rights to query the issue.
Bobby Ramlochan, acting chief executive officer at NP, said yesterday the Veeder-Root system was now being compared to their “dip” check logs, where metal rods measure the fuel delivered by tankers to help balance the discrepancy in figures.
“If we checked the tankers here and it had, say, $40,000 worth of fuel, her (Marva Peters’s) Veeder-Root meter was only reading a portion of that and that went on for six years,” he said.
He said the discrepancy was only discovered late last year when the new board carried out an audit.
Ramlochan said NP did not stop deliveries to that station when the discrepancy surfaced because once a station had a dispute with the company, NP would extend a line of credit to compensate for outstanding payments until the issue was resolved.
“If you have a disputed balance, you will get time to work it out,” he said in a telephone interview. He said the board met with Peters twice and was currently reconciling their figures with the station’s owner. “It is not that she didn’t pay, it is not that she got extra credit,” he said.
Ramlochan said this was strictly a board and management issue and there was no reason for the Energy Minister to get involved.
“This should not have even reached to the Minister. She has no authority to instruct the board to do anything about collecting payments,” he said.
In April, former chief executive officer Richard Callender was dismissed for allegedly extending a multi-million dollar credit facility to a single station in South Trinidad. Seepersad-Bachan said the Peters issue is “completely different” from the Callender issue.
She said in that issue, there had to be a “system over-ride” to allow for that line of credit to continue, while this issue was being sorted out and could be cleared up soon. Ramlochan said there is one more meeting planned to sort out the discrepancy and the outstanding payments would be cleared up “soon”.
Repeated attempts to contact both Minister Peters and his wife, Marva, who operates the station, were unsuccessful. www.bgocled.com
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