Manning defends government appointees to OCM board

MINISTER in the Ministry of Finance Brian Manning has defended the government's move to appoint two members to One Caribbean Media Ltd's (OCM) board of directors.

The directors the government is seeking to put on the board are Dale McLeod and Shakka Subero.

OCM is the parent company of the Trinidad Express newspaper and TV6.

During a sitting of the Senate on July 3, opposition senator Wade Mark questioned the move, calling it a move to interfere with the freedom of the press.

In response, Manning said this was not the case but rather the government being fiscally responsible by having representatives to the company, of which it owns 23 per cent of shares. Manning said the government acquired 15,286,000 OCM shares valued at $183,431,000 in July 2018 after the Clico bailout.

These shares, he said, along with other shareholdings acquired from Clico Investment Bank in partial repayment for the Clico bailout, such as shares in Republic Bank and West Indian Tobacco Company, were transferred to the National Investment Fund Holding Company, a wholly state-owned enterprise, to be kept in trust for citizens.

"This move by no stretch of the imagination has anything to do with seeking to influence the editorial policy of the various companies within the OCM group.

"Instead, this is all about responsible corporate governance, and it would be wrong for any major shareholder of any company incorporated under the Companies Act of TT to just sit idly by and watch its asset dissipate and its share value diminish in its weight."

He said the value of the shares owned by the holding company fluctuated, as expected, over time, but OCM's had devalued by 69 per cent since the government acquired them, going from $12 per share in 2018 to $3.68 on July 1, 2024. This, he said, led to the government and taxpayers' asset value held in OCM shares being reduced by $127.2 million.

"The government, as the largest single shareholder of OCM, has not sought to have a presence on the board of the company over the last six years.

"But having seen its shareholdings, and by extension the people's shareholdings in OCM, reduced in value by over $100 million, with no sign of a recovery in value in the near future under the present board, it is now considered necessary for the largest shareholder in OCM to be present in the corporate decision making at the company."