Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Mem­bers of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern over what they de­scribed as trou­bling fi­nan­cial con­tra­dic­tions in­volv­ing the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS).

The meet­ing was a con­tin­u­a­tion of an in­quiry in­to MTS op­er­a­tions that be­gan last month. It was pre­vi­ous­ly re­vealed that the com­pa­ny is owed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $850 mil­lion by the gov­ern­ment and sev­er­al state agen­cies, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ow­ing an es­ti­mat­ed $180 mil­lion to con­trac­tors and ser­vice providers.

Cen­tral to the de­bate was why bal­ances from loans ob­tained in 2024 and 2025 were re­turned to the Min­istry of Fi­nance de­spite sig­nif­i­cant out­stand­ing debts owed to MTS by state agen­cies.

Dur­ing ques­tion­ing, JSC mem­ber Mar­vin Gon­za­les asked whether the Min­istry of Fi­nance as­sist­ed MTS in set­tling out­stand­ing in­voic­es. Neela Ram-At­wa­roo, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, con­firmed that dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers were on­go­ing.

“We have had con­ver­sa­tions with the Min­istry of Fi­nance both be­fore and af­ter the bud­get to look at in­creased al­lo­ca­tions for pay­ments to MTS so they can pay their con­trac­tors,” she said.

The com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial con­straints were fur­ther high­light­ed by re­ports that MTS has been re­ceiv­ing pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters from con­trac­tors and ser­vice providers over un­paid bills. In­ter­im CEO Bri­an Bachan, how­ev­er, could not pro­vide the to­tal cost of the le­gal claims mount­ed against the com­pa­ny.

Gon­za­les ques­tioned the use of two loans ac­cessed in 2024 and 2025, ask­ing, “Do you have any in­for­ma­tion on what was in­tend­ed in terms of the amount of debts owed by MTS to con­trac­tors to set­tle those out­stand­ing debts?”

Act­ing di­rec­tor of the Agro-based Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Ser­vices Sec­tor in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Ryan Ma­haraj, con­firmed that un­used loan funds were re­turned to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“The RBL loan was $269 mil­lion, in­tend­ed to set­tle debts in school con­struc­tion projects. By Ju­ly 2025, $147.5 mil­lion re­mained, and un­der Min­istry of Fi­nance di­rec­tive, the bal­ance was trans­ferred to the Cen­tral Bank,” Ma­haraj said. “The Sco­tia loan had a face val­ue of $174.7 mil­lion, with a re­main­ing bal­ance of $38 mil­lion, which was al­so trans­ferred un­der the same di­rec­tive.”

He added that, to his knowl­edge, the funds were used by the Min­istry for “bud­getary sup­port.”

In­ter­im CEO Bachan not­ed that the com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly lacks a re­source pool to set­tle its debts.

Com­mit­tee mem­ber Anil Roberts crit­i­cised the arrange­ment, call­ing it fi­nan­cial­ly il­log­i­cal.

“MTS is owed $850 mil­lion by gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions but owes $180 mil­lion to con­trac­tors and ser­vice providers,” he said. “The Gov­ern­ment takes out a loan to as­sist MTS in pay­ing its ser­vice providers in­stead of en­sur­ing that the min­istries them­selves pay their bills. This shifts the bur­den on­to tax­pay­ers while leav­ing the fun­da­men­tal pay­ment is­sues un­re­solved.”

Com­mit­tee Chair­man An­tho­ny Vieira echoed con­cerns, de­scrib­ing the arrange­ment as un­usu­al.

“You’re op­er­at­ing un­der a pri­vate com­pa­ny struc­ture. Tak­ing out loans for some­one else is not nor­mal be­hav­iour,” he said.

Ma­haraj clar­i­fied that the loans were specif­i­cal­ly for school re­pairs and con­struc­tion projects.

“MTS is the le­gal bor­row­er. The loans are guar­an­teed and ser­viced by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go for re­pairs and con­struc­tion of schools,” he said.

The com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial struc­ture is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by an es­ti­mat­ed $42 mil­lion owed to MTS re­tirees.

Chair­man Adri­an Bar­ran not­ed that MTS has been en­gag­ing min­istries that owe the com­pa­ny sig­nif­i­cant sums in an ef­fort to re­cov­er funds and meet its oblig­a­tions.