SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) has re­voked the ap­point­ment of di­rec­tor Dr Ah­mad Khan, a mere four months af­ter he was in­stalled on the board of the en­er­gy com­pa­ny.

“I un­der­stand that as of Fri­day, No­vem­ber 21, 2025, the Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary of the NGC was ad­vised that I am no longer a mem­ber of the board of the NGC,” Khan told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day in a What­sApp mes­sage, when asked if he had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion from NGC.

This was af­ter re­ports start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia on Sat­ur­day that Khan had re­signed from the NGC.

Khan, a sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment spe­cial­ist, how­ev­er, con­firmed in his mes­sage that he did not “sub­mit any let­ter of res­ig­na­tion or ver­bal­ly in­di­cate to any­one that I have re­signed from the board of the NGC and its sub­sidiaries.”

Khan said he was in the process of ver­i­fy­ing “what is go­ing on and as such, had no fur­ther com­ment to make at this time.”

A well-placed source told Guardian Me­dia that Khan re­fused to be a rub­ber stamp as an NGC di­rec­tor and ruf­fled the feath­ers of a few peo­ple in the last few weeks.

In Ju­ly, Khan was ap­point­ed one of sev­en di­rec­tors to NGC’s board, which is chaired by at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen.

The oth­er di­rec­tors are Dr Ram­per­sad Moti­lal, Prof David Alexan­der, Ro­hi­ni Ra­mai-Pe­ters, Steve Ravi See­ta­hal, Naz­im Sar­jad, and Joseph Toney.

NGC falls un­der the purview of En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Khan’s ex­it came the same day Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd pres­i­dent, Do­minic Ram­per­sad, was asked to pro­ceed on pre-re­tire­ment leave de­spite not hav­ing in­tend­ed to leave the com­pa­ny.

An in­ter­nal memo is­sued to staff in­di­cat­ed that Ram­per­sad had tak­en up ear­ly re­tire­ment with ef­fect from No­vem­ber 21, 2025.

The memo, signed by Ramdeen, out­lined that Col­in Rame­sar will as­sume the role of act­ing pres­i­dent un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Ram­per­sad de­part­ed his of­fice af­ter spend­ing 25 years with the en­er­gy com­pa­ny.

A source close to Khan said he kept chal­leng­ing some of the de­ci­sions made at NGC with­out the board’s ad­vice or en­gage­ment.

“Re­mem­ber, when de­ci­sions are made, the di­rec­tors are held re­spon­si­ble. So if he did not ex­er­cise his fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a mem­ber of the board, then he would be com­plic­it in what­ev­er the board is do­ing. He is very se­ri­ous about that.”

The source said Khan was a straight­for­ward and no-non­sense per­son.

“He was brave to speak out in meet­ings be­cause he didn’t have any de­pen­den­cy on be­ing on the NGC board,” said the source.

Each NGC di­rec­tor re­ceives a month­ly pay­ment of $5,000 for their ser­vices.

Khan, the source said, raised the is­sues pro­fes­sion­al­ly and re­spect­ful­ly.

While he sup­port­ed some things, he ques­tioned things, the source ex­plained.

This ob­vi­ous­ly “ruf­fled some feath­ers” and cre­at­ed some an­noy­ance.

The source said that for the past three weeks, ru­mours have been cir­cu­lat­ing in NGC and the pub­lic do­main that Khan had re­signed.

But this was not true.

To Khan’s shock, on Sat­ur­day, his name was re­moved from NGC’s let­ter­head as a di­rec­tor.

In ad­di­tion, he no longer has ac­cess to NGC’s por­tal.

“So that means he’s no longer part of the board. They pushed him out. Con­struc­tive dis­missal is what it is called in HR,” said the source.

As a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny, the source said, NGC would have to re­port a change in its di­rec­tors to the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion.

Asked if Khan in­tend­ed to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion to NGC, the source said no, and that peo­ple in the hi­er­ar­chy of the UNC may have al­ready been told that Khan re­signed, which is fur­thest from the truth.

“There is no res­ig­na­tion let­ter signed by Khan.”

The source said Khan was elat­ed when he was se­lect­ed as an NGC di­rec­tor.

“NGC is such an im­por­tant en­ti­ty in the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He was ho­n­oured to know that he was con­sid­ered for the board. And giv­en the fact that en­er­gy is not just about fos­sil fu­el any­more, it’s about re­new­able and green en­er­gy,” the source said.

Know­ing that Khan has a wealth of knowl­edge and ex­per­tise in this field, the source said he thought that as a di­rec­tor, he would have been able to con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to the State-owned com­pa­ny and help trans­form the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“He’s dis­ap­point­ed that he would no longer be able to do that.”

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia sent a What­sApp mes­sage to Mooni­lal ask­ing if Khan’s ap­point­ment had been re­voked and who was like­ly to re­place him, but he did not re­spond.

Ramdeen did not an­swer calls on his mo­bile phone nor re­spond to a text mes­sage.

About Khan

Khan re­tired sev­en years ago as an en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al with over 35 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in im­ple­ment­ing strate­gies and pro­grammes to im­prove the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sound man­age­ment of wastes and chem­i­cals in the Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States of the Caribbean.

Khan’s ca­reer be­gan in ma­rine pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol.

The hold­er of a PhD in En­vi­ron­men­tal Chem­istry with post-doc­tor­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions in ocean sci­ences and man­age­ment, Khan de­signed biore­me­di­a­tion fa­cil­i­ties, san­i­tary land­fills, and chem­i­cal waste in­cin­er­a­tion fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in some of the Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States in the Caribbean.

He has al­so been in­stru­men­tal in de­vel­op­ing in­te­grat­ed sol­id waste man­age­ment poli­cies and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in var­i­ous work­shops and train­ing pro­grammes to en­hance en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment prac­tices in the re­gion.

His ex­per­tise and con­tri­bu­tions have been recog­nised by the Basel, Rot­ter­dam, and Stock­holm Con­ven­tions.

In 2005, Khan cre­at­ed his own en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tan­cy firm of­fer­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment ser­vices to a wide cross-sec­tion of in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial sec­tors in the East­ern Caribbean.

Since then, Khan and his firm have per­formed en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ment stud­ies and con­duct­ed en­vi­ron­men­tal com­pli­ance mon­i­tor­ing for ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment projects in Trinidad.