Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) record­ed a prof­it af­ter tax of $3.285 bil­lion in 2025, its high­est in 11 years, de­clar­ing the re­sult a sign of im­proved man­age­ment un­der her ad­min­is­tra­tion.

De­liv­er­ing a state­ment in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­der­scored the scale of the per­for­mance, not­ing the fig­ure is “dou­ble the prof­it of the pre­vi­ous year.”

She framed the re­sult as ev­i­dence of a sharp turn­around since the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as­sumed of­fice, ar­gu­ing that stronger gov­er­nance and strate­gic lead­er­ship have re­shaped the state en­er­gy com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance.

“What they could not have done in 10 years, we have done in 10 months,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­sults re­flect­ed a “trans­for­ma­tion­al ap­proach” to the man­age­ment of na­tion­al as­sets.
She con­trast­ed the cur­rent per­for­mance with what she de­scribed as in­con­sis­tent re­sults un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, cit­ing a $2.1 bil­lion loss in 2020 and a $1.3 bil­lion loss in 2023.

“That pe­ri­od was marked by in­com­pe­tence, fail­ure and mis­man­age­ment,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, the turn­around high­light­ed the po­ten­tial of state en­ter­pris­es with ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship.

“This is a clear demon­stra­tion of the enor­mous po­ten­tial of Trinidad and To­ba­go when our na­tion­al as­sets are prop­er­ly man­aged, strate­gi­cal­ly guid­ed and al­lowed to op­er­ate with a trans­for­ma­tion­al vi­sion,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so em­pha­sised NGC’s cen­tral role in the econ­o­my, not­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to gov­ern­ment rev­enue, for­eign ex­change earn­ings and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment.
She cred­it­ed the com­pa­ny’s lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and NGC chair­man Ger­ald Ramdeen, say­ing the re­sults are a “strong en­dorse­ment” of the Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Beck­les, Young cred­it PNM

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ques­tioned whether the “record per­for­mance” could not be at­trib­uted to the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG un­der the PNM in 2023.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed, “What I can con­firm is that a com­pa­ny that your gov­ern­ment, your pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, drove in­to the ground in an ef­fort to make the rich rich­er, while poor peo­ple suf­fered, that will not hap­pen un­der my watch.”

She added, “And to an­swer your ques­tion, no, it is not be­cause of any­thing you did in the ten years you were there.”

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­ject­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim of cred­it for NGC’s record prof­its, ar­gu­ing they stem from pri­or poli­cies un­der the PNM.

In a state­ment on so­cial me­dia, Young said the 2025 per­for­mance “is due to the re­struc­tur­ing of AL­NG” and high­er gas prices.
He in­sist­ed that “noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth” than the idea that the UNC drove the gains.

He al­so chal­lenged NGC to dis­close how much prof­it came from those fac­tors, ac­cus­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Mooni­lal and Ramdeen of be­ing “in­com­pe­tent” and say­ing they have done noth­ing pos­i­tive in the sec­tor.

Ramdeen: Cut­ting wastage made huge im­pact

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment, Ramdeen, who was praised by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for his stew­ard­ship of the com­pa­ny, said he is hum­bled and is sim­ply do­ing the job ex­pect­ed of him.

“What we have de­liv­ered is as a re­sult of hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and sac­ri­fice to do the job that the peo­ple have want­ed us to do here and dis­charge the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that has been giv­en to us by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter. And I’m very proud of the re­sults that we have achieved and that is the end of that sto­ry.”

Asked what he has done to bring about the prof­its, Ramdeen said it was a com­bi­na­tion of de­ci­sions which marked a stark de­par­ture from how the state en­ti­ty was run un­der the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment.

“We cut the ex­pens­es of run­ning the op­er­a­tions of the NGC by over $600 mil­lion. That is num­ber one. We were the first board that dealt di­rect­ly with the price of gas that was be­ing charged to T&TEC. We took a de­ci­sion at the NGC in the very first board meet­ing that the NGC will not sell gas be­low ac­qui­si­tion cost.”

He added: “One of the fun­da­men­tal things that you ought to tell the pub­lic is that NGC, that was be­ing run by the PNM, was tak­ing the cheap­est gas that they ac­quired up­stream and was sell­ing it to T&TEC.

“We took the cheap­est gas that we had ac­quired up­stream and sent it to At­lantic LNG, where we were mak­ing the largest prof­it on the sale of gas, so that we had a dif­fer­ent ap­proach that had noth­ing to do with re­struc­tur­ing.”

Ramdeen un­der­scored that cut­ting “wastage” made a huge im­pact on the bot­tom line.

“We have cut the wastage across the NGC group that ac­count­ed for more than half of the prof­its be­cause the NGC group – the way it was run be­fore – was not the way it has been run over the last 10 months.”

He said it is egre­gious that for­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is at­tempt­ing to take cred­it for the fi­nan­cial turn­around by claim­ing that the re­struc­tur­ing of At­lantic LNG in 2023 un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, is a ma­jor con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the prof­its seen to­day.

“The pro­ject­ed prof­its for 2025 were in the range of $300 mil­lion... $380 mil­lion. We have brought back $3.28 bil­lion, so that their mod­el, if they had con­tin­ued in gov­ern­ment af­ter April 2025, that is what the peo­ple would have yield­ed. It is disin­gen­u­ous to do what Mr Young is do­ing as a for­mer Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and a 45-day Prime Min­is­ter. It is disin­gen­u­ous to do that.”

The NGC chair­man said the com­pa­ny is pre­pared to con­tin­ue do­ing the hard work and mak­ing the hard de­ci­sions.

Size­able TTNGL

div­i­dend pay­ment

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so an­nounced to Par­lia­ment a spe­cial in­ter­im div­i­dend pay­ment of $154.8 mil­lion from T&T Na­tion­al Gas Ltd (TTNGL), de­scrib­ing it as a di­rect boost to the na­tion­al econ­o­my and long-await­ed re­lief for share­hold­ers.

“I am very pleased to an­nounce a spe­cial div­i­dend of $1 per share,” she said, not­ing it will ben­e­fit over 11,500 in­vestors.

She added the pay­ment marks “the first div­i­dend in al­most four years” and re­flects a shift in gov­er­nance.

“This is a de­lib­er­ate ef­fort to de­liv­er long-await­ed re­turns,” the Prime Min­is­ter said, promis­ing share­hold­ers the op­tion to re­ceive pay­ments in US dol­lars.

The Prime Min­is­ter lament­ed, “The share price col­lapsed from $30.50 per share to $2.40 per share un­der the PNM’s watch, the TTNGL share­hold­ers lost 89 per cent of the val­ue of their in­vest­ment.”