A gala black tie event or­gan­ised by An­gos­tu­ra, which was card­ed for this week­end and at which a rare bot­tle of aged rum was to be auc­tioned, has been can­celled.

Well placed sources told the T&T Guardian the com­pa­ny had or­gan­ised the event at the Hy­att Re­gent ho­tel for to­mor­row. Com­pa­nies were al­so in­vit­ed to buy ta­bles seat­ing ten per­sons at a cost of $1,800 per per­son, with the cost of a ta­ble be­ing $18,000.

The event was la­belled a din­ner and auc­tion at which a rare bot­tle of aged rum was go­ing to be auc­tioned and pro­ceeds were to go to Princess Eliz­a­beth Home. An­gos­tu­ra had al­so planned to ho­n­our five peo­ple for com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice at the event.

But a source said em­ploy­ees were in­formed on­ly on Tues­day and Wednes­day that the Hy­att event had been can­celled. The rea­son giv­en was that the lev­el of pa­tron­age was down be­cause per­sons were redi­rect­ing their re­sources to as­sist­ing vic­tims of last month’s dev­as­tat­ing floods. The event has been post­poned to some­time in 2019.

Asked whether the in­ves­ti­ga­tion now un­der­way in­to the award of mil­lion-dol­lar con­tracts to three com­pa­nies owned by Sergeant Mark Her­nan­dez had in­flu­enced the de­ci­sion, the An­gos­tu­ra source said this was “quite pos­si­ble” giv­en the im­por­tance of the com­pa­ny to the state.

An­gos­tu­ra’s au­dit de­part­ment head In­grid Lash­ley re­port­ed­ly called in ac­count­ing firm Price Wa­ter­house Coop­ers (PWC) to in­ves­ti­gate the award of sev­er­al con­tracts au­tho­rised by CEO Genevieve Jod­han a month ago.

But Jod­han has said as a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny, she has “al­ways held the in­ter­est and wel­fare of all em­ploy­ees and stake­hold­ers” in the “con­duct “ of the com­pa­ny’s busi­ness and will con­tin­ue to do so.

An­gos­tu­ra is de­scribed as one of the crown jew­els ac­quired by the state af­ter the 2009 bailout of the CL Fi­nan­cial Group.

Sources told the T&T Guardian it has been more un­der the mi­cro­scope of the Min­istry of Fi­nance since shares from the com­pa­ny were of­fered as part of the first of­fer­ing of the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund which was of­fered to the pub­lic in Ju­ly. Four bil­lion dol­lars was raised in that of­fer­ing, which was over­sub­scribed.

When he pre­sent­ed the 2019 Bud­get, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said an­oth­er NIF of­fer would be put out in 2019. It is not clear whether more An­gos­tu­ra shares would have been of­fered.

The T&T Guardian at­tempt­ed to reach An­gos­tu­ra com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Giselle La Ronde- West with­out suc­cess yes­ter­day.