JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

NGC axes CNG promo campaign

by

20160122

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) has ter­mi­nat­ed its brand am­bas­sadors pro­gramme as part of its cost-cut­ting ini­tia­tives in light of the coun­try's eco­nom­ic down­turn and ac­cord­ing to its act­ing cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Chris­tine Pun­nett the com­pa­ny is tak­ing a "num­ber of ini­tia­tives to ra­tio­nalise its ex­pen­di­ture" which will re­sult in dou­ble-dig­it sav­ings.

Over the past two months the new NGC board, chaired by Ger­ry Brooks, took a num­ber of cost-cut­ting ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing a freeze on hir­ing and salaries, re­duced staff bonus­es and cut­back of ex­pens­es on the an­nu­al staff Christ­mas par­ty.

The brand am­bas­sadors pro­gramme was con­cep­tu­alised un­der the pre­vi­ous board, chaired by Roopc­hand Chadeesingh, and was launched in 2014 with some of the coun­try's top sport­ing per­son­al­i­ties re­tained to en­cour­age cit­i­zens to make the switch to the cheap­er, clean­er com­pressed nat­ur­al gas (CNG) fu­el.

Both par­ties were to ben­e­fit. The brand am­bas­sadors–crick­eters Daren Bra­vo, Anisa Mo­hammed, De­nesh Ramdin and world cham­pi­on hur­dler Je­hue Gor­don–were to help sell the CNG con­cept and they were in turn paid a month­ly stipend.

Pun­nett con­firmed to the GML En­ter­prise Desk that, "NGC ter­mi­nat­ed its brand am­bas­sador pro­gramme in 2015."

For­mer brand am­bas­sadors told the GML En­ter­prise Desk that they were "sur­prised" that the pro­gramme was ter­mi­nat­ed "so soon."

They were paid a month­ly stipend of over $10,000 as part of the ini­tia­tive to en­cour­age mo­torists to make the switch to CNG. They said the mon­ey was used to off­set the cost of train­ing to en­hance their per­for­mance on the sport­ing field.

How­ev­er, they were told in late De­cem­ber last year that the pro­gramme was be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed with ef­fect from De­cem­ber 31. They con­ced­ed that it was up to the com­pa­ny to de­ter­mine what strate­gies it want­ed to pur­sue.

Ramdin told the GML En­ter­prise Desk he was in Aus­tralia when he was con­tact­ed and in­formed that the pro­gramme was be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed. He said a let­ter was de­liv­ered to his moth­er two weeks ago and she was asked to sign as hav­ing re­ceived it.

He de­scribed the de­ci­sion to cut the pro­gramme as "quite strange," telling us that he felt the brand am­bas­sadors pro­gramme was "a good ini­tia­tive" and it was "un­for­tu­nate" that the pro­gramme was stopped.

Ramdin said he did not think that the stipend they were paid would have "ham­pered the com­pa­ny" but he said the com­pa­ny in­di­cat­ed they had no choice be­cause of the re­ces­sion.

Ramdin, who is cur­rent­ly en­gaged in the Nagi­co Su­per 50 Tour­na­ment, said he was "not stressed" over the de­ci­sion.

He and the oth­er brand am­bas­sadors said they felt good be­ing part of the ini­tia­tive to mar­ket the NGC/CNG brand and were grate­ful for the sup­port from NGC and for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered to them.

They at­tend­ed CNG-re­lat­ed events when they were in the coun­try. While they have no idea how suc­cess­ful the pro­gramme was for NGC they told us that many of their friends ex­pressed an in­ter­est in con­vert­ing to CNG and some even pur­chased the Hon­da City which has dual ca­pac­i­ty of gaso­line and CNG.

Pun­nett did not re­spond to our query on the suc­cess of the pro­gramme but we were able to as­cer­tain that there is no plan to re­sume it any­time soon. She told us "a se­ries of new ini­tia­tives are in train as the group moves to open four new CNG sta­tions in 2016. Oth­er CNG ini­tia­tives are planned which will be an­nounced short­ly."

The de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the pro­gramme was just one of the cost-cut­ting mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed by the com­pa­ny fol­low­ing the re­quest by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley for state com­pa­nies to re­duce ex­pen­di­ture by sev­en per cent.

The com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to Pun­nett, "has em­barked on a num­ber of ini­tia­tives to ra­tio­nalise its ex­pen­di­tures with­in the group." She said: "These mea­sures are ex­pect­ed to re­alise dou­ble dig­it sav­ings in ex­pen­di­tures." She did not elab­o­rate.

Asked whether those ini­tia­tives would in­volve staff cuts Pun­nett said: "NGC recog­nis­es the un­prece­dent­ed de­cline in the last decade of com­mod­i­ty and nat­ur­al gas prices and will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly."

She con­firmed that the com­pa­ny planned to con­tin­ue its cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­grammes, which over the years has lent its sup­port to a range of caus­es and as­sist­ed in the de­vel­op­men­tal needs of com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, adding:

"Our CSR ini­tia­tives have tar­get­ed fence line com­mu­ni­ties and giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, NGC will con­tin­ue its long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of work­ing with com­mu­ni­ties in a con­struc­tive man­ner."

GML EN­TER­PRISE DESK


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored