Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

A call is be­ing made for a com­plete and thor­ough foren­sic au­dit of the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed af­ter the most re­cent au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments of the state-owned ag­gre­gate com­pa­ny re­vealed loss­es of more than $23 mil­lion in fis­cal 2021 and 2020.

The call comes from the Min­ing and Pro­cess­ing of Ag­gre­gates As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MPAATT).

Na­tion­al Quar­ries’ ac­cu­mu­lat­ed deficit as of fis­cal 2020 was $191 mil­lion.

In 2021, the com­pa­ny re­port­ed a loss of $15.8 mil­lion, while in 2020, the loss was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $7.9 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments.

The au­dit was per­formed by Moore Busi­ness So­lu­tions Trinidad and To­ba­go, and was laid in par­lia­ment last month.

Dur­ing a Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee meet­ing in March, the com­pa­ny said a mal­ware at­tack de­layed its au­dits.

Its Chair­man, Ash­mead Ghany, said there were loss­es to­talling $135.8 mil­lion be­tween 2020 and 2025.

In ad­di­tion to the com­pa­ny’s re­port­ed loss­es, Moore stat­ed in its re­port that it was un­able to ex­press an opin­ion on the fi­nan­cial state­ments due to its in­abil­i­ty to ob­tain suf­fi­cient ap­pro­pri­ate au­dit ev­i­dence.

Ac­cord­ing to Moore’s 2021 au­dit, “The com­pa­ny did not pro­vide sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion to sub­stan­ti­ate the com­plete­ness, ex­is­tence, ac­cu­ra­cy and val­u­a­tion of prop­er­ty, plant and equip­ment, as­sets held for sale, oth­er re­ceiv­ables and pre­pay­ments, oth­er payables and ac­cru­als, de­vel­op­ment costs, en­vi­ron­men­tal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and roy­al­ties payable as at 30 Sep­tem­ber 2021.

“We were un­able to ver­i­fy by al­ter­na­tive means the com­plete­ness, ex­is­tence, ac­cu­ra­cy and val­u­a­tion of prop­er­ty, plant and equip­ment, as­sets held for sale, oth­er re­ceiv­ables and pre­pay­ments, oth­er payables and ac­cru­als, de­vel­op­ment costs, en­vi­ron­men­tal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and roy­al­ties payable as at 30 Sep­tem­ber 2021. As a re­sult of these mat­ters, we were un­able to de­ter­mine whether any ad­just­ments might have been found nec­es­sary in re­spect of these el­e­ments com­pris­ing the state­ment of fi­nan­cial po­si­tion and the state­ment of com­pre­hen­sive in­come.”

The au­dit re­port­ed as­sets of $51.9 mil­lion and li­a­bil­i­ties of $137 mil­lion for 2021.

Li­a­bil­i­ties in 2020 were re­port­ed as $124.7 mil­lion.

“Un­fair ad­van­tage”

Com­ment­ing on the au­dit re­port, the Min­ing and Pro­cess­ing of Ag­gre­gates As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MPAATT) said Na­tion­al Quar­ries can­not be per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing in its cur­rent form, as its poor per­for­mance im­pacts the in­dus­try as a whole.

“The MPAATT calls for an im­me­di­ate and com­pre­hen­sive foren­sic au­dit to de­ter­mine the full ex­tent of its op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the vol­ume and val­ue of ag­gre­gates sold, the na­ture and scope of con­tracts award­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­volv­ing the rental of heavy equip­ment and re­lat­ed ser­vices and the ul­ti­mate ap­pro­pri­a­tion of all rev­enues col­lect­ed.

“Such an au­dit is crit­i­cal to en­sure trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and prop­er gov­er­nance, and to re­store pub­lic con­fi­dence in the man­age­ment of State re­sources,” it said via its con­sul­tant and ad­vi­sor, Shyankaran Lal­la.

MPAATT warned that if NQ­CL were grant­ed a min­ing li­cence, in its cur­rent fi­nan­cial state, fol­low­ing its re­cent ad­ver­tised ap­pli­ca­tion, it would con­sti­tute an abuse of process and a breach of the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of oth­er min­ing com­pa­nies.

“If Na­tion­al Quar­ries were grant­ed a li­cence ahead of oth­er quar­ry op­er­a­tors who sub­mit­ted ap­pli­ca­tions more than four (4) years ago and have sat­is­fied all re­quire­ments stip­u­lat­ed by the Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als. Such pref­er­en­tial treat­ment would be in­con­sis­tent with the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness, trans­paren­cy, and ad­min­is­tra­tive jus­tice that ought to gov­ern the li­cens­ing regime.

“Where is the equal­i­ty of treat­ment to quar­ry op­er­a­tors in the pro­cess­ing and ap­proval of li­cences? Un­der sec­tion 10 of the Min­er­als Act, Chap 61:03, the Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als has an oblig­a­tion for the man­age­ment and the de­vel­op­ment of min­er­al re­sources in gen­er­al and the State’s min­er­al re­sources…Has the Di­rec­tor been per­form­ing his du­ties in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Min­er­als Act Chap 61:03?” Lal­la said.

Ac­cord­ing to the MPAATT, NQ­CL’s poor fi­nan­cial stand­ing can have rip­ple ef­fects across the en­tire quar­ry­ing in­dus­try.

“Poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing on pric­ing, pro­duc­tion and in­vest­ment re­duces over­all pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the na­tion­al ag­gre­gate sup­ply chain. The quar­ry­ing in­dus­try feeds di­rect­ly in­to road con­struc­tion and hous­ing In­fra­struc­ture projects. If NQ­CL prices in­cor­rect­ly or op­er­ates in­ef­fi­cient­ly, this can cause an un­sta­ble sup­ply of ma­te­ri­als, de­lays in na­tion­al con­struc­tion projects and un­pre­dictable pric­ing across the sec­tor,” it said.

The coun­try’s oth­er ma­jor quar­ry­ing and ag­gre­gate com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive body, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, agreed that NQ­CL plays a cen­tral role in sta­bil­is­ing sup­ply and in­flu­enc­ing mar­ket dy­nam­ics.

“When the com­pa­ny ex­pe­ri­ences fi­nan­cial or op­er­a­tional chal­lenges, it can af­fect pro­duc­tion lev­els, pric­ing con­sis­ten­cy, and over­all con­fi­dence in the sec­tor. Giv­en that the con­struc­tion in­dus­try re­lies heav­i­ly on a steady and pre­dictable sup­ply of ag­gre­gates, any in­ef­fi­cien­cies at a ma­jor sup­pli­er can cre­ate down­stream ef­fects, de­lays in projects, in­creased costs, and un­cer­tain­ty for con­trac­tors and de­vel­op­ers. This un­der­scores the im­por­tance of strong gov­er­nance and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy with­in key in­sti­tu­tions such as Na­tion­al Quar­ries that sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. So its im­pact can be quite neg­a­tive both for the in­dus­try and tax­pay­ers,” Pres­i­dent Nigel Tenia said.

As of Ju­ly 2024, on­ly 12 quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions were li­cenced, ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als.

The com­pa­nies with li­cences were: Fir­ma Fab­ri­ca­tion and Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed, Seeereer­am Broth­ers, Bicks Au­to Whole­salers, Kall­Co, Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion, Ricky Raghu­nan Lim­it­ed, Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, and Her­mitage Lime­stone Lim­it­ed.