$61M fraud

This was revealed yesterday by Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine at yesterday’s post-Cabinet meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair. Some of the overseas accounts reportedly include banks in the United States, Dubai and London.

Ramnarine disclosed that on September 26, last, while officials at the NEC were reviewing their bank statements for the past year, it was discovered that US$9.6 million (TT$61,440,000) was missing from a US dollar account owned by the company at First Citizens Bank (FCB).

“These incidents were uncovered in the very late part of September while the NEC was reviewing its bank statements. They noticed that US$ 9.6 million was missing from a US dollar account from transactions which occurred just a couple days before September 26,” Ramnarine said.

Ramnarine said the corporation contacted the bank as well the Energy Ministry, and from there, further investigations were launched and it was learnt that the sum was attained by the presentation of false documents to facilitate the wire transfers.

“The (Energy) Ministry was apprised of the incidents and as such we sought the intervention of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and the Attorney General (Anand Ramlogan). A team of auditors and financial analysts have been retained in this regard, and I can say that the NEC and the FCB are working closely with each other to recover the money taken and to ensure that the perpetrator of this act is caught,” Ramnarine said.

As part of the probe, persons at NEC and FCB have either been suspended or sent on leave. In the interest of transparency, NGC chairman Larry Howai, who is also First Citizens Group chief executive officer has recused himself from the investigation. NEC is a subsidiary of NGC.

Ramnarine indicated that since the incident came to their attention almost two months ago, both his ministry and the Attorney General were being regularly updated.

“So far a significant portion has been recovered, and with the assistance of legal proceedings enacted by the FCB, we have been successful in attaining a freezing order on most of the outstanding sum,” Ramnarine said. He revealed that so far, about US$4.6 million has been recovered from one of the financial institutions to which the money was transferred. He noted that while that meant that US$5 million was still outstanding, about 98 percent of that sum had been frozen and the State was working assiduously to recover the missing money.

He noted that investigations had revealed the relevant companies and organisations that the money had been transferred to, and as a result, the State would be sparing no effort to ensure that the money was recovered and those responsible were made to face the consequences of their actions. However, this was as much as the line minister was prepared to say with regard to the investigations of the fraud.

When questioned by reporters as to how this could happen, the Energy Minister explained that fraud of this nature was not a localised occurrence, but a terrible price of globalisation.

“This is really a wake up call in particular for the State enterprise sector as to how they manage their accounts. I suppose now we have to look at the processes and systems at the NEC with respect to ensuring that this sort of thing does not happen again. However, in the scheme of things, I believe we have done quite well to recover what we have,” Ramnarine said.

When Newsday contacted Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, he said the attempt to defraud the State was the most “serious and boldface attempt” to defraud a State enterprise in recent memory. However, he said he wanted to assure the public that the Government was “on top of things” and that they would not rest until the sum had been recovered.

“This is a most serious incident of criminal fraud which has taken place at international levels, and as a result we are working with lawyers in Dubai and London to follow the paper trail left behind to fully recover the monies lost. Any evidence of wrongdoing will of course be sent to the DPP (Roger Gaspard) via the police so that appropriate charges can be laid,” Ramlogan said.

The NEC is a fully operational entity within the NGC Group with responsibility for development and management of industrial estates, port and marine facilities for the gas-based energy sector.