MEDIA EXPERTS have expressed concerns about the move by the government-owned National Investment Fund (NIF) to determine exactly who did and did not vote for its nominees to the One Caribbean Media Ltd (OCM) board of directors.
On July 11, at OCM’s 56th annual general meeting, shareholders voted not to appoint Shakka Subero and Dale Mc Leod to the media house’s board. The two were nominated by NIF, which owns 23 per cent of OCM’s shares and is the company’s largest single shareholder.
[caption id="attachment_1096178" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Shakka Subero - Photo courtesy Ministry of Digital Transformation[/caption]
Subero is Digicel’s government relations manager and was recently on the board of state owned TTT. He received 28,684,368 votes against him and 18,542,717 for his appointment.
Mc Leod, an insurance executive, received 23,229,443 votes for and 23,997,642 votes against his appointment.
In the Senate on July 3, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Brian Manning defended the Government’s move to appoint the two members saying it was not an attempt to interfere with the freedom of the press, but part of its fiscal responsibility as it was one of the company’s largest shareholders.
Government acquired 15,285,917 shares in OCM in 2018 through the Clico bailout. Manning said the value of the shares went down by 69 per cent from $12 a share in 2018 to $3.68 in 2024, reducing the taxpayers’ asset value to $56.2 million.
[caption id="attachment_1096177" align="aligncenter" width="454"] Dale McLeod -[/caption]
In a notice of meeting and an addendum to the notice of meeting published in June, the OCM board said it did not support the nomination of either candidate and expressed serious concerns about Subero, in particular. It said as he was affiliated with the company’s competitors in a position in government relations that would be a conflict of interest and could challenge the independence necessary for an OCM director.
OCM is the parent company of CCN TV6, Trinidad Express Newspapers Ltd and i95.5fm, and owns a 51 per cent share in Green Dot Ltd, a provider of digital cable TV and broadband internet services.
In a letter dated July 12, attorney for NIF Deborah Peake, SC, asked OCM for the number of shareholders who voted at the AGM and the number of shareholders who authorised the chairman of the meeting to vote by submitting proxy forms. The information was to be submitted within seven days.
She also requested that a NIF representative be allowed to inspect the OCM's share register used for the AGM, the record of the votes cast, and the proxy forms and identification documents submitted for the AGM.
Peake said, “The above information and inspection will enable my client to satisfy itself that the meeting was conducted in accordance with the law, the articles and by laws of the company, and will demonstrate that the company is committed to transparency and accountability.”
Former Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) president Sunity Maharaj a former group executive for
