~ Company was in a coma when I took the helm in September 2022 --- Troy Washington~
PHILIPSBURG: --- Management of NV GEBE held a press conference on Wednesday to update the public on the company's state of affairs.
Temporary Manager Troy Washington made clear that when he was appointed in September 2022, his core task was to assess the company whose system was hacked, causing a major setback, especially when it comes to billing and collection of funds.
Washinton said the company was lagging due to the hack; the commercial department suffered tremendously while there were shortcomings in production. Back then, the management team worked on both a short-term and long-term plan, all of which required finances, and at that time, he said GEBE was preparing its 2019 financial statements, making it almost impossible to secure financing when Corporate Governance requirements were not being respected.
Since then, NV GEBE has worked on its 2020 and 2021 financial statements, which should be finalized soon. The company intends to work on its 2022 and 2023 statements, which would bring the company up to date by the end of 2024.
“Not having the companies’ financial statements in order in 2020 presented a tough task for management to address all the problems it faced.” With that in mind, that does not mean the company would not secure financing, but it would have made it way more tedious.
Washington said the company was in a comatose state when he took over its management, meaning that since then, he has been dealing with one crisis after another. He made clear that the management of NV GEBE knows of the company’s shortcomings and has been working rigorously to solve those issues.
He said management had discovered the potential energy crisis in January 2024 and had been working on short-term solutions to deal with their shortcomings. Still, they did not anticipate engine 19 to fall out due to its crankshaft failure.
On Sunday, June 16th, the Supervisory Board of Directors held an extraordinary meeting. They gave Washington the signing power to finalize all agreements for NV GEBE to lease containerized generators. Washington further explained that the negotiations will be completed by the end of this week, and the agreements will be signed.
As for the power barge, Washington said that after taking NV GEBE out of a deep hole, he could not put the company back in such a hole when he knew it was cash-trapped.
The barge available to St. Maarten was 78 megawatts, while NV GEBE wanted to purchase 20 megawatts. However, after all calculations, they concluded that it was not financially feasible for the company. He said the company intends to absolve the cost of leasing the generators, but they must do so responsibly. When he took over the management of NV GEBE, he made clear that the company was in a dire financial state, and it would have been very irresponsible of him to tie the company into any form of debt since it could not sustain the cost of the barge on a long-term basis. “I could not in good conscience do a disservice to the company, the population, and the staff of NV GEBE. I cannot see myself as a responsible individual making such a decision, so I looked at other solutions.”
The Temporary Manager explained that only 95% of NV GEBE customers are now being billed, while only 50% of those customers are paying their monthly bills. He said some time ago, it was stated that GEBE had restored 75% of its data, which he said was untrue. Washington said that only 35% of the data had been recovered when he took office. However, all data have been recovered today, and NV GEBE has been working on getting its billing up to date. The Commercial Department is busy working on its May and June bills. However, they are urging all clients of NV GEBE to begin paying their bills because NV GEBE will have to resort to disconnection sometime soon.
