T&T company implicates Finance Ministry in alleged kickbacks scheme

…documents show 20% of contract price requested

Leaked documents on Monday revealed that a Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) based company was approached by a senior official from the Guyana Oil company (GuyOil), who requested money from the company on behalf of a top official in the Finance Ministry.

It was previously reported in sections of the media that Commissiong and Company Limited was approached by GuyOil for payments after it would have signed three contracts with the State-owned oil company to construct two 10,000-barrel storage tanks at its Providence terminal.
According to documents seen by this newspaper, the GuyOil employee informed Commissiong Managing Director, Nirmala Rambharat, that the payments were on behalf of a senior official within the Finance Ministry.
The leaked email shows that Rambharat complained that she “received a call from a woman identifying herself as the CEO of [GuyOil], she had asked me to pay to her 20 per cent of the contract value before the advance payment could be made. She also indicated this was not for her but for the [name withheld] and she urge me to pay the payment to her and then the advance payments can be made to my company.”
Rambharat refused to make the extra payments, noting in the correspondence that she informed GuyOil that her profit margin was 10 per cent of the contract price and that since the company was new to Guyana, its rates were designed to introduce Guyana to its service.

Commissiong also noted in correspondence with GuyOil’s legal department that the company holds no local collateral. In the correspondence, dated September 11, 2019, the Trinidadian company requested that GuyOil make its advance payments within 14 days so that the project could be started.
“A few days after, the Facilities Manager, Mr Nascimento, sent me an email stating that the advance payment bonds were rejected and I have to produce local bonds. I explained to him that my company is an international company and has no collateral in Guyana… neither the contract document never stipulated a local bond which is impossible for an international company to do. On Monday GuyOil sent a letter terminating all my contracts with them.”
Moreover, Rambharat revealed that after enquiring from other Trinidadian contractors that provided services to GuyOil, they confirmed having paid the GuyOil official 20 per cent of their contract values upon request.

It is understood that the company is preparing to sue the Government, since it has already invested thousands of US dollars in mobilisation efforts to execute the projects, said to be worth over $100 million. Efforts to contact Finance Minister Winston Jordan were futile.

Legal woes
It would not be the first time the Finance Ministry has been embroiled with a Trinidadian company in a legal dispute. In fact, it took the intervention of President David Granger to save Finance Minister Winston Jordan from being jailed, after he did not comply with court orders to pay Trinidad-based Dipcon.
The Trinidad-based construction company had taken the Finance Minister to court for failing to honour the payment of millions of dollars, which was awarded to Dipcon by Justice Rishi Persaud in 2015. A few months ago, High Court Judge, Justice Sewnarine-Beharry had ordered Minister Jordan to pay Dipcon the US$2.2 million award or face jail time.
Dipcon first went to court in 2009 to recover monies owed for road works done. In Justice Persaud’s orders, Government was supposed to pay the company US$665,032.17 as payment for the works done along with US$1,563,368.50 for costs it incurred for those works, together with interest on both amounts, at a rate of six per cent annum from February 10, 2009, to October 21, 2015, and thereafter at the rate of four per cent per annum until fully paid.
However, since none of the payments they were owed was made, Dipcon had successfully approached the High Courts for an administrative order to compel the Minister to make the payment.
On July 8, 2019; the last day for Jordan to pay Dipcon the monies, the President came through with an executive order for a grant of respite, shielding the Minister. The President issued the order in keeping with his powers under Article 188 of the Constitution. According to the order, Jordan was granted his reprieve “until all appeals and remedies available to him and the State were exhausted.”