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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Mark wants answers on Govt's $8.8m light bulb programme

by

Gail Alexander
1719 days ago
20201024
Opposition Senator Wade Mark makes his contribution during yesterday’s debate on the 2021 Budget.

Opposition Senator Wade Mark makes his contribution during yesterday’s debate on the 2021 Budget.

T&T Parliament

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."


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