Education Facilities Company Ltd ‘goes out of business’

IT appears Government has made a final decision on the future of the debt-ridden Education Facilities Company Ltd (EFCL).

In a purported notice of termination to staff, which has been circulating widely on social media on Monday, acting chairman of the EFCL Savitree Seepersad said the company was “unable to carry on the business for which it was established and has decided to close down its undertaking and go out of business.”

Seepersad is listed as being a deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Messages sent to former EFCL chairman Ricardo Vasquez were not answered, nor were messages sent to the Finance Ministry’s communications department and Ministers Colm Imbert and Brian Manning on the decision.

The EFCL’s website is no longer functioning and there was no answer to any of the numbers listed for the company.

Newsday understands a petition to have the company wound up has been filed in the High Court but no date has been set for a hearing.

Newsday was also told the matter was a “sensitive” one but a notice will be advertised and all creditors will get it.

The EFCL was established as a special-purpose state enterprise on March 11, 2005 under the Patrick Manning administration. The company's functions involved repairing and maintaining early childhood education centres, primary and secondary schools. It also had responsibility for the Education Ministry’s text book rental programme.

Since its establishment in 2005, a total of 133 new school facilities had been constructed and outfitted. These include 85 ECCE centres, 40 primary and eight secondary schools. Over the same period, EFCL has done over 8,000 repairs and maintenance jobs.

Most recently, it has been unable to pay staff and has had millions of dollars in judgment debts registered against it.

This was alluded to by Seepersad in the letter. She admitted the company has, for some time now, been unable to meet monthly operational expenses, including the payment of salaries to employees and pay its debts.

She also said it has also been “inundated with litigation which has caused an additional strain on its resources and frozen its bank accounts.”

The purported termination notice also said steps have been taken to wind up the company.

The only response to any of Newsday’s queries came from Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly who said the EFCL was “now under direct management” of the Finance Ministry.

“The MoE does not have the financial information you seek; you would have to speak to MoF.”

Since 2018, the National Maintenance Training and Security Company Ltd (MTS) had taken over the school repair projects for her ministry and she said, “So, that work is not affected by this situation.”

In the purported termination notice, Seepersad said the company had “no alternative but to terminate your employment” giving one month’s notice.

She also said, “You will not be required to report to duty during the period of notice,” and arrangements were being made to facilitate payment of salaries due from October 2, 2021-March 31, 2022 less tax and statutory deductions.

Employees were also asked to hand over any company property by Wednesday.

It was only last week that an $18 million debt was added to EFCL’s books when the court ordered it to pay the sum owed to contractor Emile Elias for work done on the Parvati Girls’ Hindu College in Debe in 2013.

Even before that in May 2019, Newsday reported Government had to settle nearly $2 billion in debt, legal costs and claims by contractors against the EFCL, and within the last five years companies have received judgments against the company for work done to schools, amounting to millions.

In February 2021, one contractor levied on the company’s Long Circular Road, St James offices loading office furniture, fittings, and computers onto flat-bed trucks.

At the time, Vasquez declined comment and referred all questions to the Education Minister who told Newsday, her ministry and the Finance Minister were “in discussion about a final resolution of the issues surrounding the debt profile of the EFCL.”

The decision to levy came after EFCL had asked for time to pay, but never did.

In September, last year, employees who had not been paid wages up to May of that year, reportedly said the company had to regulate its operations to one of the two floors it occupied at the building in St James because of mounting expenses.

Unnamed employees said rent had not been paid to the landlord for more than a year, the TTEC bill had, at the time, been outstanding for six months and they were on the verge of losing internet and phone connection.