Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Two state en­ter­pris­es have been struck off and 16 more in dan­ger of be­ing struck off the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said yes­ter­day.

Ho­sein said some of the state en­ter­pris­es were in­cor­po­rat­ed by way of the Com­pa­nies Act and, there­fore, have to legal­ly com­ply with reg­u­la­tions just like pri­vate com­pa­nies.

“The first com­pa­ny, sor­ry to dis­ap­point you, Miss (Jear­lean) John, is the Na­tion­al Ma­rine and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Ltd was struck off on 16 Jan­u­ary, 2025, while the Tourism Trinidad Ltd was struck off on 10 March, 2025,” he said at post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

He said the oth­er com­pa­nies in breach, hav­ing not filed their an­nu­al re­turns were:

• Alutrint Ltd

• EM­B­DTT

• eTeck

• Ex­porTT

• Gold­en Grove-Buc­coo Ltd

• In­vesTT

• The Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help Ltd

• Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Ltd

• Na­tion­al In­for­ma­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy Ltd

• NID­CO

• Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd

• Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Ltd

• Trinidad and To­ba­go Cre­ative In­dus­tries Ltd

• TTT

• Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny Ltd

• Trinidad and To­ba­go Free Zone Ltd

Asked if the state en­ter­pris­es be­ing struck off would com­pro­mise le­gal cas­es in­volv­ing the com­pa­nies, Ho­sein said: “That’s a mat­ter we will have to look in­to. That’s some­thing we will have to con­sid­er.”

Ho­sein al­so an­nounced that Cab­i­net had agreed to and ap­proved a com­pa­nies amnesty for com­pa­nies that, for var­i­ous rea­sons, have not filed their cor­po­ra­tion doc­u­ments.

The amnesty will run from Jan­u­ary 31, 2025, to Sep­tem­ber 15, 2025.

He said 46,671 com­pa­nies were struck off for fail­ing to file their doc­u­ments for three suc­ces­sive years and 27,649 com­pa­nies are cur­rent­ly in de­fault of the Com­pa­nies Act, hav­ing failed to sub­mit their an­nu­al re­turns.

Ho­sein urged those com­pa­nies to make use of the amnesty to file their doc­u­ments and avoid be­ing struck off, while com­pa­nies that have al­ready been struck off have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be placed back on the reg­istry if they com­ply.