Vidya Deokiesingh has been fired from Petrotrin seven months after a scandal broke at the cash- strapped State oil company in which he was fingered in an internal audit report as having facilitated fraud at the company which resulted in an over-payment by Petrotrin to lease operator A and V Oil and Gas to the tune of TT$80 million.
Deokiesingh received his letter of termination on Wednesday.
He was told that the decision followed investigations by the company’s internal audit department and confirmed by external consultants, and an independent industrial relations investigation consistent with the company’s policy.
Petrotrin chairman Wilfred Espinet confirmed that Deokiesingh had been terminated, telling the T&T Guardian that the process was “thorough,” and the company followed the industrial relations policy “because such a situation had the likelihood of ending up entangled in legal things for years. I wanted to make sure that we had all of our T’s crossed and I’s dotted.”
Efforts to reach Deokiesingh proved futile as calls to his mobile went unanswered.
An investigation into Deokiesingh’s role in the scandal was launched in September last year shortly after Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar revealed the findings of an internal Petrotrin audit report dated August 17 at a political meeting of the UNC.
The report revealed that crude oil supplies received from the Catshill field operated by A and V Oil and Gas had spiked by as much as 150 percent in a ten month period and that Petrotrin paid more than TT$80 million for oil which it never received.
The findings of the Internal Audit Committee report were subsequently confirmed in a report submitted to the company by independent external consultants Kroll Consulting Canada Company (Kroll).
A report commissioned from global oil and gas consultants Gaffney Cline also found that the Catshill reservoir was not capable of producing the volumes in question.
Ironically in the period under investigation on May 15, 2017 Energy Minister Franklyn Khan had singled out A and V Oil and Gas for special praise during the Senate debate on the Finance Variation of Appropriation Bill.
Khan said: “I want to go on record and today praise one company that has done tremendously well on a programme called the Incremental Petroleum Service Contracts. It is a company called A&V Drilling based in Penal. They took the Catshil field about three years ago. It was farmed out to them by Petrotrin, making a 130 barrels of oil per day. You know what is A&V Drilling production in Catsil now, 4,000 barrels per day. And you know why it is 4,000 barrels a day? Because they have drilled 32 wells since they took over the field. “
Deokiesingh was transferred from his substantive post a Hospitality Officer in the Facilities and Management division of Petrotrin to the Exploration and Production Department as Crude Procurement Specialist.
Persad-Bissessar raised questions “what made him a custody transfer officer at the time the fake oil taking place? Who authorised it? Why was he transferred from hospitality to be a specialist in custody transfer of oil?” She asked of the state oil Company.
Deokiesingh unsuccessfully contested the Siparia seat for the ruling Peoples National Movement in the 2015 General election was one of two defeated PNM candidates to be appointed as Directors of the Board of Lake Asphalt a post from which he was subsequently asked to resign.
In the wake of the fake oil scandal Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley admitted to calling Deokiesingh and the owner of A and V Oil and Gas admitting to having a “personal friendship” with Nazim Baksh the owner of A and V.
Within days of the fake oil scandal breaking, Deokiesingh went on voluntary leave in the period September 11th to December 4th.
He returned to work on December 6th prompting protests by workers at the Company’s Santa Flora Division who objected to him being sent to work in the division while he was under investigation.
WHAT THE INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT SAID
The internal audit report said: “The evidence suggests that there has been fraudulent activity in the Catshill Field in that the operator (A&V Oil and Gas Limited) in collusion with a Petrotrin employee has been over stating Catshill’s production for at least six months.”
The report identified the six month period as January to June this year.
The report estimated production for the month of June would have been “over-stated by about 90,000 barrels which works out to an overpayment of US$2.97 million.”
But for the six month period January to June it estimated that “Catshill over stated its production by at least 350,000 barrels and Petrotrin would have overpaid US$11.5 million.”
As a result it said Petrotrin had paid royalties of approximately US$1.86 million to the government for crude oil “not received during the period 2017 January to June.”
The audit conducted by Petrotrin’s Chief Audit Executive Rajkumar Bissessar noted that the increase in “production” from Catshill “coincided with Deokiesingh’s stint as the Crude Procurement Specialist,” with responsibility for the fiscalisation of the Catshill field.
It pointed to “many anomalies” in the sales tickers signed off by Deokiesingh.
According to the report, “There were many instances where the volumes of crude specified in the sales ticket could not be pumped in the stipulated time frame, given the available pump flow rate.”
The report pointed to GPS records which it said indicated “there were times Mr Deokiesingh was not present at the Catshill location when the fiscalisation was being done.”
This according to the report meant that “he signed the Sales Tickets after the fact and accepted the figures specified by the Operator.”