Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Sen­a­tor Wade Mark is call­ing for an­swers sur­round­ing Gov­ern­ment’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of LED light bulbs.

“Some 1.6 mil­lion free LED Light Bulbs cost­ing some $8.8 Mil­lion were pur­chased by Gov­ern­ment through T&TEC aimed at pro­mot­ing en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy and en­er­gy con­ser­va­tion.”

How­ev­er, Mark said the fol­low­ing facts have arisen:

*Emit­ter En­er­gy In­cor­po­rat­ed is a North Car­oli­na-based com­pa­ny and is al­leged­ly op­er­at­ing out of a res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty or house, which is the res­i­den­tial ad­dress of the same com­pa­nies in the al­leged man­u­fac­ture of the LED Light Bulbs and Nare Light­ing Lim­it­ed, the im­porter and sup­pli­er.

* The house is al­so the liv­ing res­i­dence of its own­er, name­ly one Seep­er­sad Ly­man.

* The war­ran­ty is a guar­an­tee by the man­u­fac­tur­er and not the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor (T&TEC).

Mark said, “We’d like to know whether Emit­ter En­er­gy Inc., the al­leged man­u­fac­tur­er, can faith­ful­ly ho­n­our this war­ran­ty for 1.6 mil­lion LED light bulbs? The im­porter of the light bulbs was No­va Light­ing Lim­it­ed, a sub­sidiary of the well-es­tab­lished HAD­CO Group.

“We’ve re­trieved some doc­u­men­ta­tion for a pur­port­ed ship­ment from a so-called man­u­fac­tur­er op­er­at­ing and lo­cat­ed on an­oth­er con­ti­nent. Gov­ern­ment must say. Who is the true man­u­fac­tur­er? Is it Emit­ter En­er­gy Inc. and/or an­oth­er man­u­fac­tur­er lo­cat­ed on an­oth­er con­ti­nent?"

He added, “We’re aware that in June of 2019, three months pri­or to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in­form­ing the coun­try of his ‘bright idea’, a ship­ment of LED bulbs was sent to this same Emit­ter En­er­gy Inc. We’re all aware of shell com­pa­nies and the role of the mid­dle­men in these sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions."

Mark said he saw cat­a­logues be­long­ing to Emit­ter En­er­gy Inc. of the USA and the oth­er from an­oth­er man­u­fac­tur­er from an­oth­er con­ti­nent, in which the cat­a­logue had iden­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion.

“It ap­pears to be pla­gia­rism at its best. We'd like to know the true ori­gins of these bulbs?

"No­va Light­ing Ltd, the al­leged im­porter and sup­pli­er of the 1.6 mil­lion LED light bulbs is not on the war­ran­ty. This war­ran­ty is be­tween the Gov­ern­ment through T&TEC and Emit­ter En­er­gy Inc. of North Amer­i­ca. Is this the first tranche of LED bulbs be­ing im­port­ed by this coun­try? This is a straight case of 'bulb from a house'."

Mark al­so said Gov­ern­ment must clear the air and say if it's push­ing out gas sta­tions deal­ers' bid to buy gas sta­tions in favour of Pres­tige Hold­ings, which is a con­ces­sion­aire at sta­tions. He said deal­ers have a di­rect con­tract with Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um, while con­ces­sion­aires rent space on the sta­tions' com­pound to sell a prod­uct.

"Would you be­lieve who is the num­ber one con­ces­sion­aire in NP gas sta­tions to­day? A com­pa­ny by the name of Pres­tige Hold­ings, the own­ers of KFC. The same own­er who sits on the Roadmap to Re­cov­ery Com­mit­tee as ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter, Chris­t­ian Mout­tet, the very man who ad­vis­es PM Kei­th Row­ley on how to run our econ­o­my," he said.

"Why are con­ces­sion­aires be­ing grant­ed with first pref­er­ence to pur­chase the gas sta­tions which be­longs to the peo­ple. The own­ers of KFC have nev­er run a gas sta­tion. It's the deal­ers that toil in the ser­vice sta­tions. Is Gov­ern­ment sig­nalling an at­tempt to squeeze out deal­ers and hand these prof­itable gas sta­tions with valu­able re­al es­tate and prime lo­ca­tion to their main con­ces­sion­aire Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed? Be­cause we got in­for­ma­tion that there are sev­er­al gas sta­tions with KFC’s out­lets on their premis­es."