19 Sept 2025

The Editor,

When it comes to White-Collar Crime in our Republic, we are once again being forced to ask if Justice is truly blind and, more to the point, whether we are ever going to see that concept in effect.

During the PP government 2010 to 2015, we saw then-AG, Anand Ramlogan, investigating and launching lawsuits against the former Board members of UTT, e-Teck and Petrotrin for various breaches of Directors’ legal duties. While those were deeply political actions, taken by a politician, to the best of my knowledge those were pioneering cases testing the limits of Directors’ responsibilities under S99 of the Companies Act.   The targets were obviously the Chairmen of those State-owned Enterprises, Professor Ken Julien and the late Malcolm Jones, both of whom could be regarded as prime PNM operatives. Despite his political motivations, I respected then-AG Ramlogan’s actions as setting a new high-water mark in our public sector governance and accountability.  

The UTT case collapsed when the main State witness changed his testimony in July 2015. In September 2015, PNM returned to office for a decade, after which the Petrotrin case on the failed Gas to Liquids project was discontinued on the advice of the now-discredited Vincent Nelson, which then-AG Faris Al Rawi accepted. The e-Teck case on ‘Bamboo Networks Ltd’ never really got started since the former Board claimed that the legal action was started outside the four-year limitation period, but that defence was defeated by the State, at High Court, Appeal Court and the Privy Council, using the novel argument that the limitation period could only really have started running with a change of government. Despite the Privy Council’s 2018 ruling in favour of e-Teck, the case against those former Board Members was never pursued by the PNM administration; it simply slid into obscurity.

Those were truly deplorable episodes, both the alleged dereliction of Directors’ duties and the resulting high costs to the public. But the really reprehensible aspect is that the PNM administration effectively abandoned those cases against their political allies once they were returned to office after the 2015 elections. So what is the position now?

Steve Ferguson, a former UNC heavyweight and one of the Piarco Airport accused, just lost his case in the Appeal Court in Miami and was ordered to pay $131M USD, plus costs and interest. Ferguson reportedly plans to file a further appeal, so can we really expect the State to actively pursue this matter, now that a UNC government is back in power?

SIS reportedly just lost in its Arbitration with NGC over the Beetham Water Recycling Plant, so once again the question is whether NGC will press a UNC financier (Krishna Lalla of SIS) to pay that Award?

We have also seen recent reports of Justice Frank Seepersad resisting EMBD’s attempts to again delay the litigation in that huge 2017 case against the UNC’s political allies. Those include current UNC Energy Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal, so I am watching this one with tremendous interest.  Could it be that the newly-appointed EMBD Board is trying to derail the case against its political allies without actually ‘filing’ to discontinue the action?

Of course there are so many more of these political prosecutions, including the SportTT Board and Eden Gardens cases, all caught-up in the turbid post-election flux. 

We must break this pattern of the political class constantly looking after their own, with the Public Interest being only a remote concern. Two wrongs could never make a right. If the UNC wishes to do better than the previous PNM administration, they must act differently and be seen to do so.

‘What ain’t meet you ain’t pass you‘ is a real long-time saying which greatly amused us when we were young, but look where we reach.

Afra Raymond
afraraymond.net