Articles

TSTT denies whistleblower claims

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion has un­earthed a damn­ing whistle­blow­er re­port in­side the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) which de­tails spe­cif­ic ques­tion­able pro­cure­ment prac­tices and mega-mil­lion dol­lar deals with­out board ap­proval.

While the State com­pa­ny is deny­ing all the de­tails con­tained in the re­port, its au­thor, for­mer ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent Mo­bile, Nicole Ker­ry Lumkin, is stand­ing by her state­ments.

The Lumkin re­port, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, de­tails the spe­cial treat­ment grant­ed to two com­pa­nies owned by the same man.

News of the mis­man­aged fi­nances comes even as TSTT, cit­ing dire fi­nan­cial straits, let go over 500 em­ploy­ees last month to main­tain its vi­a­bil­i­ty. The re­ports show that the com­pa­ny may have mis­man­aged more than half a bil­lion dol­lars be­tween 2013 and 2018.

Guardian Me­dia made con­tact with TSTT’s Se­nior Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Mar­sha Ca­ballero, last Thurs­day and was told that the com­pa­ny need­ed time to re­spond ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. The com­pa­ny sent its re­sponse to ques­tions on the doc­u­ments late yes­ter­day. In that re­sponse, TSTT is deny­ing any fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety and ac­cused this me­dia house of “tar­get­ing” its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Dr Ronald Wal­cott.

In the first week of the year, Guardian Me­dia re­ceived a pack­et of doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing two in­ter­nal au­dits, one by TSTT’s for­mer in­ter­nal au­dit man­ag­er Mait­land Daniels, an­oth­er by the com­pa­ny’s chief in­ter­nal au­di­tor Randy Mar­cano and an in­ter­nal re­port by Lumkin.

The Lumkin re­port con­tains sev­er­al ques­tions, in­clud­ing why two cell phone re­tail­ers were grant­ed spe­cial priv­i­leges with TSTT with­out board ap­proval even though the deals were a fi­nan­cial strain on the com­pa­ny. In one of the doc­u­ments, Lumkin ques­tioned the re­la­tion­ship be­tween TSTT, Cell­Mas­ter and Mi­zo­va. Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, the two re­tail­ers were paid a flat fee of $9 mil­lion and $10.5 mil­lion re­spec­tive­ly in­stead of a com­mis­sion on sales like all oth­er re­tail­ers.

Lumkin de­scribed the two con­tracts as “no­to­ri­ous­ly bad mil­lion-dol­lar con­tracts” which were al­lowed to con­tin­ue in the ab­sence of board ap­proval and lim­it­ed re­turns for TSTT.

Both re­tail out­lets are owned and op­er­at­ed by Richard Smith, who is re­lat­ed to the for­mer sport min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith.

Lumkin, in her re­port, de­tailed the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of all TSTT re­tail­ers and found that while the av­er­age cost per trans­ac­tion with oth­er re­tail­ers ranged from $64 to $115, Cell­Mas­ter car­ried a $546.68 fee per trans­ac­tion and Mi­zo­va was paid a mas­sive $9,971.51 per trans­ac­tion. While oth­er re­tail­ers got a com­mis­sion rang­ing from three to 13 per cent, Cell­Mas­ter earned a 21 per cent ver­sus Mi­zo­va’s 16 per cent.

“TSTT sim­ply makes a huge loss at the Mi­zo­va stores of more than $9,000 per trans­ac­tion,” Lumkin not­ed in the re­port.

“To date, TSTT has spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50 mil­lion on these two con­tracts.”

She added that the on­ly “re­spon­si­ble” thing to do was to ter­mi­nate the two con­tracts. How­ev­er, that was nev­er done.

Un­der the ban­ner “im­por­tant facts,” Lumkin said that the orig­i­nal Cell­Mas­ter con­tract was val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $27 mil­lion be­tween 2011 and 2014. She claimed that the con­tract nev­er re­ceived board ap­proval.

“I have not been able to find the orig­i­nal busi­ness case or any oth­er ma­te­r­i­al that prop­er­ly jus­ti­fies this con­tract,” Lumkin said.

Lumkin said the “orig­i­nal Mi­zo­va con­tract was ap­proved via the CEO fi­nan­cial au­thor­i­ty lim­it and was val­ued at $3.5 mil­lion.” That con­tract ex­pired since Jan­u­ary 31, 2015.

“Again, this con­tract did not re­ceive board ap­proval, and I have not been able to find the orig­i­nal busi­ness case or any oth­er ma­te­r­i­al that prop­er­ly jus­ti­fies this con­tract,” Lumkin said in her re­port.

Aside from that pref­er­en­tial treat­ment, Lumkin al­so not­ed that be­fore Ronald Wal­cott be­came TSTT’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, “he di­rect­ly man­aged Cell­Mas­ter from 2011 to 2013 as Head of the Pre­paid and Chan­nel Man­age­ment De­part­ment.”

Lumkin pro­posed that both con­tracts be ter­mi­nat­ed and had the sup­port of the ex­ec­u­tives. How­ev­er, by Jan­u­ary 2016 the con­tract doc­u­ments for the two com­pa­nies were back on the ta­ble. She said she wrote to the ex­ec­u­tives but nev­er re­ceived a re­sponse. By Jan­u­ary 25, 2016, she was in­formed that the two con­tracts would con­tin­ue and would go for­ward for board ap­proval.

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Image:  Sarah Klockars-Clauser, Open Photo

PM To Appoint Auditors In Petrojam Probe

The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has sought to backpedal on statements made by Permanent Secretary Sancia Bennett Templer on Tuesday regarding an audit into irregularities at the state-owned oil refinery Petrojam.

Yesterday, Bennett Templer sought to clarify in a statement that Petrojam was not being asked to undertake a forensic audit or appoint a forensic auditor to probe the $5.2 billion oil losses uncovered at the entity.

She noted that the prime minister, who has portfolio responsibility for energy, had notified Petrojam of his intent to commission a special forensic audit and to appoint the audit firm.

Bennett Templer noted, too, that Petrojam had submitted to the OPM an initial suggested terms of reference (TOR) for the audit. However, the TOR has to go through a review process involving the OPM, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, and other persons or entities as may be determined to have an interest.

“The selection of the auditor or audit firm will be subject to the applicable procurement guidelines and requirements. As soon as the forensic auditor is appointed, we expect that their work will run parallel to that of the Petrojam Review Commission, and, where possible, feed into the considerations of the Petrojam Review Commission,” it added.

The permanent secretary’s statement comes just one day after she revealed to lawmakers at Tuesday’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament that an initial draft of the terms of reference had been completed by the management of Petrojam and was submitted to her office for review.

Image:  The Blue Diamond Gallery

Cabinet should not acquire even a pencil

AMERICAN Chamber of Commerce (Amcham TT) CEO Nirad Tewarie has called for electronic tendering and says Cabinet should not be involved in procurement.

He was speaking at a panel discussion for the TT Transparency Institute Launch of the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index held yesterday at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Mt Hope. “I do not think the Cabinet has any basis for being involved in procurement whatsoever for anything whether it be a ship or a pencil. And I think we need to move away from that.” He was likely referring to the Cabinet committee set up for the acquisition of vessels for the seabridge in his mention of a “ship.” Tewarie at the panel discussion said to change corruption in TT and across the democratic world the way institutions are designed has to be changed to be responsive to the needs of people. “We have a magic in TT that is so special that if we capture in one electoral cycle we could make huge strides and in two we could change the country.”

He said TT was a magical place, has a lot “going for us” and he has a lot of hope for this society. “But we have to act. We have to hold people to account.”

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Image:  The Blue Diamond Gallery

Warmington Blasts Decision To Let Petrojam Select Forensic Auditors

A junior minister in the Andrew Holness administration yesterday sided with the parliamentary Opposition, suggesting that the management of the scandal-scarred state-owned oil refinery Petrojam should never have been given the responsibility to craft the terms of reference for the forensic audit into the $5.2 billion oil losses uncovered at the entity.

Everald Warmington, state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), stunned other lawmakers at yesterday’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament meeting when he declared “it was totally illogical to have thought of this in the first place”.

“I’m being honest. We need to have a system that is totally transparent,” Warmington insisted.

His pronouncement came after Sancia Bennett Templer, permanent secretary in the OPM, revealed that an initial draft of the terms of reference was completed by the management of Petrojam and submitted to her office for review.

“Petrojam will proceed to market to procure a consultant to undertake that audit of oil losses as soon as we have completed the procurement process,” Bennett Templer added at the meeting, which was held at Gordon House in downtown Kingston.

The consultant will be selected through the open-tender process, she revealed.

The arrangement triggered outrage among the opposition members on the committee, who questioned why the management of the refinery was being allowed chose its investigator.

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Image:  theilr (flickr)

Cruise petitioners seek assurances from governor

Campaigners collecting signatures for a petition to force a people-initiated referendum on the controversial cruise port project met with the governor Friday as they continued their push for Cayman Islands voters to decide the issue.

The group, Cruise Port Referendum Cayman, says it is getting close to the target of 5,288 signatures – representing 25 percent of the electorate – required to trigger a public vote on the port.

Amid news that government has already agreed to a contract with two major cruise lines to help finance the project, the group was seeking assurances that the governor’s office would help ensure the constitutional requirement for a referendum is upheld if and when the petition hits its target.

In a brief press release about the meeting, CPR Cayman stated, “The group raised concerns that included the government’s overall lack of transparency, the significant environmental impacts to the marine environment, and the financial implications of Cayman’s most expensive and complex capital works project.

“The group also sought assurances that the Governor’s Office, with constitutional oversight for good governance and security, would ensure that the constitutional rights of the Caymanian people would be upheld when the petition signed by 25 percent of registered voters is presented to the government, in accordance with Section 70 of the Constitution.”

The Governor’s Office confirmed the meeting had taken place, but there was no indication from either party that the governor would intervene in the issue in any way. He has previously said that the cruise port is a matter for Cayman’s elected government.

In an emailed statement released in response to questions from the Cayman Compass, the Governor’s Office wrote, “The discussions were constructive and informative. The Governor believes it is important to be accessible to all sectors of society in the Cayman Islands to enable him to listen to a cross section of views on the important issues facing the territory.”

Earlier this month, Premier Alden McLaughlin announced that Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corporation had made “formal financial commitments” to help build the cruise berthing facility.

He said the two cruise lines, which are also reported to be involved in one of the bid teams for the project, would work with whichever consortium was selected as preferred bidder and no public money would be spent on the dock

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Image:  James Willamor (flickr)