Richard Lord

For­mer chair­man of Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) Ganesh Sa­hadeo says his board did not aban­don the com­pa­ny as is be­ing claimed by the Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz..Sa­hadeo told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day that the six mem­bers of the NFM Board con­tin­ued to func­tion even af­ter the new Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice.Sa­hadeo that said in June last year, Cadiz, through his per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, asked for the res­ig­na­tion of the board mem­bers.

Sa­hadeo added that in their let­ters of res­ig­na­tion, the board "of­fered" to quit but clear­ly in­di­cat­ed that the ef­fec­tive date would be "at the plea­sure" of the min­is­ter.He said in Au­gust, the six board mem­bers were reap­point­ed at an an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM).Sa­hadeo said that two months lat­er, on Oc­to­ber 8, dur­ing a com­mit­tee meet­ing of the board, mem­bers got a fax from Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an, in­di­cat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had agreed on the re­con­sti­tu­tion of the NFM board.

The fax, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 7, thanked the mem­bers for their ser­vices and wished them well in the fu­ture.Sa­hadeo said Ross Alexan­der, who rep­re­sent­ed labour on the board, did not get that fax and, as a con­se­quence, re­mained the on­ly mem­ber still on the board.Sa­hadeo said based on the fax they re­ceived, it was clear that their ser­vices were no longer re­quired at NFM. He in­sist­ed that they did not desert the NFM.He said when he was ap­point­ed chair­man in 2008, the NFM was los­ing mil­lions an­nu­al­ly. He said he and the board had suc­cess­ful­ly turned the com­pa­ny in­to a prof­it-mak­ing one.He warned, how­ev­er, that the NFM could re­vert to los­ing mon­ey again, based on what was done in the fu­ture.Sa­hadeo said the Gov­ern­ment was treat­ing the NFM like it was a "whol­ly-owned state com­pa­ny."