DEPUTY LEADER of the UNC David Lee has questioned why the National Gas Company (NGC) board is seeking indemnification on a deal that cost the country over $400 million.

Speaking at a media briefing at the Opposition Leader’s office at Chloe Building, Charles Street, on Wednesday, Lee said the Conrad Enill-led board must answer what made it invest $440 million in a project that it was warned against.

“If they had done their due diligence they would not have asked for an indemnity,” he said, adding that probably the board had been coerced into making a deal to save Atlantic LNG Train 1. He did not say who might have coerced the board.

“What was the decision process in making in that $440 million investment?”

In a letter to Finance Minister Colm Imbert in February, Enill asked for NGC's board, along with a subsidiary company's board, NGC LNG, to be indemnified of any responsibility, if the attempt to keep Train 1 active in the face of falling natural gas was unsuccessful.

Addressing another NGC issue, Lee said the dividends from the company were used by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government to develop the country, which was a good thing.

“The dividends were paid to the people of TT and under the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Government it was used to develop TT. It is a good thing that was done because there was no development in the last six years.”

He said there was no significant development that “touched the lives” of the citizens during the last six years of PNM rule, adding that those developments are what is carrying the country today.

Lee did not specify what those developments were.

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