The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) con­tin­ues to be in the spot­light af­ter pulling spon­sor­ship from three steel bands, a move that has raised eye­brows in the cul­tur­al sec­tor. The com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, re­mains silent not on­ly on its spon­sor­ship de­ci­sions but al­so on how it failed to prop­er­ly ac­quire the Banyan Archives.

On Au­gust 24, Guardian Me­dia sent NGC a se­ries of ques­tions re­gard­ing the archive, none of which have been an­swered: Why did NGC pub­licly an­nounce in 2022 that it would ac­quire the Banyan Archives on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go but fail to fol­low through? Who with­in NGC was re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the ac­qui­si­tion was com­plet­ed? Was there a for­mal agree­ment, con­tract, or board ap­proval for the ac­qui­si­tion? If so, why was it not ex­e­cut­ed? Were any se­nior ex­ec­u­tives in­volved in de­lay­ing or ob­struct­ing the deal? Was the US$250,000 price for the full archive eval­u­at­ed or ap­proved by NGC?

Now, a source with di­rect knowl­edge of the ne­go­ti­a­tions has come for­ward to ex­plain what hap­pened. The source, who held a se­nior role at NGC at the time, said the com­pa­ny had board ap­proval to pur­chase the archives over two years ago.

“We were go­ing to ac­quire it,” the source said. “We got board ap­proval when Mark Lo­quan made the an­nounce­ment at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val in 2022. All that re­mained was fi­nal­is­ing the pur­chase agree­ment with Na­tion­al Archives and pay­ing Banyan the US$250,000. Be­tween you and me, for an en­er­gy com­pa­ny, that is a small amount.”

The source said le­gal com­pli­ca­tions with copy­right were cen­tral to why NGC nev­er com­plet­ed the pur­chase. Un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Copy­right Act, the rights to re­pro­duce, adapt, dis­trib­ute, and lend works are strict­ly con­trolled. How­ev­er, the act al­lows for “pub­lic lend­ing”—the tem­po­rary trans­fer of a work by a non-prof­it in­sti­tu­tion such as a li­brary. This meant NGC could ac­quire the archives but on­ly have them man­aged by a not-for-prof­it agency like the Na­tion­al Archives, mak­ing the ma­te­r­i­al pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble while com­ply­ing with copy­right law. The prob­lem was nev­er the price; it was the le­gal frame­work.

Meet­ings had tak­en place with the Na­tion­al Archives, which sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als to digi­tise and make the ma­te­r­i­al pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble. The source said the plan had been care­ful­ly re­viewed, with ran­dom sam­ples of the archives checked for com­plete­ness, and all that was left was the le­gal for­mal­i­ties.

“Even if Mark had re­mained, it would have been done. The board had ap­proved it. Mon­ey was nev­er the is­sue. What re­mained was sim­ply to fi­nalise the agree­ment,” the source said.

The source sug­gest­ed the fail­ure to fol­low through was not due to mis­man­age­ment but a lapse in con­ti­nu­ity af­ter se­nior staff changes. The process had reached the point where a three-way con­tract be­tween Banyan, Na­tion­al Archives, and NGC was the on­ly re­main­ing step. For rea­sons un­known, the agree­ment was nev­er ex­e­cut­ed.

Bar­ba­dos’ pur­chase of the Banyan Archives was an­nounced dur­ing the open­ing of Car­ifes­ta XV, when Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley said her gov­ern­ment had ac­quired the his­toric col­lec­tion. She promised the ma­te­r­i­al would be made pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble across the re­gion, giv­ing young peo­ple “the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build and cre­ate more as a peo­ple.”

The archive, built by Banyan co-founders Christo­pher Laird, Dr Bruce Padding­ton, and the late An­tho­ny Hall, had been de­scribed as a na­tion­al heir­loom. Yet, af­ter years of lo­cal ap­peals for sup­port, it was Bar­ba­dos that stepped in.

When Banyan first ap­proached the then PNM gov­ern­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley agreed that NGC should ac­quire the archive on the coun­try’s be­half. NGC al­ready had a pro­gramme for cul­tur­al in­vest­ment, pur­chas­ing art­works and arte­facts, mak­ing it a log­i­cal choice. Un­der such an arrange­ment, own­er­ship would rest with the com­pa­ny while the col­lec­tion could be man­aged by in­sti­tu­tions such as the Na­tion­al Archives, NALIS, or the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Then NGC pres­i­dent, the late Mark Lo­quan, an­nounced the pur­chase pub­licly at the film fes­ti­val. Christo­pher Laird re­spond­ed with ex­cite­ment, call­ing the an­nounce­ment “an oc­ca­sion that has me to­tal­ly bowled over, that we should be recog­nised by our peers while we’re still alive…a very un­usu­al thing in Trinidad.”

But the ac­qui­si­tion nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. Guardian Me­dia has seen a copy of Banyan’s pro­pos­al, which sought US$250,000 for the full archive, in­clud­ing com­pressed and un­com­pressed for­mats and all rights “in per­pe­tu­ity.”

Cul­tur­al ac­tivist Er­rol Fa­bi­en, who has worked with Banyan since 1985, told Guardian Me­dia af­ter the an­nounce­ment was made that while many were up­set by the sale, it was not a ques­tion of los­ing her­itage. “No­body in Trinidad saw the val­ue or was will­ing to pay for it. Bar­ba­dos stood up and did what no Trinidad en­ti­ty did,” he said.

Mot­t­ley nev­er pub­licly re­vealed how much the gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos paid for the archives.