VMCOTT falling on hard times

Appearing on Tuesday before a Joint Select Committee on State Enterprises at the J. Hamilton Maurice Room of the Parliament building, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, executives of VMCOTT also acknowledged that the company is insolvent and has been so for some time.

However, they said the company’s problem is that its major clients, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) - are not paying their debt to the company.

They said the two bodies together owe VMCOTT $28 million.

The Chairman of VMCOTT, Retired Lt.

Col. Neil Bennet said the PTSC and Police Service had stopped servicing vehicles at the company for reasons which were beyond its control.

Suggesting that the PTSC’s reasons were political, Bennet said the State-managed bus company decided to take its maintenance work back to its own facility while around the same time, the Police Service got new vehicles and was having its maintenance done under warranty by the supplier of said vehicles.

He said this was still going on as the Police fleet has expanded substantially and the Police is benefitting from servicing by the dealers of the new vehicles it has acquired.

He added that this meant it was mainly older vehicles which VMCOTT is servicing for the Police Service.

VMCOTT Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Lackhan, said that although the company’s business has been reduced it has been able to significantly improve its efficiency and reduce net losses by fifty percent.

He said the company can be profitable if it is able to collect the outstanding money owed to it and ensure enforcement of the mandate that State entities must patronise the facility.

However, Bennet said the company has been working closely with its debtors but they too are constrained by their budgets and are unable to pay.

He said company officials met recently with the Head of Finance in the Police Service and was given an undertaking that they will see how quickly they can reduce that balance.

Questioned about the backlog of audited financial reports, Lackhan said the company had completed audited financial reports for 2013 and is in the process of working on those for the year 2014.

He said the company’s objective is to become fully up to date with its audited financial reports by 2018.

In response to further questioning, he said the company receives a monthly subvention of $800,000 which is mostly used to pay salaries.