The 30% reduction in after-tax profit reflected in the recently released Sterling Products 2018 Annual Report and which the company says was due overwhelmingly to inexorably climbing fuel-related operating costs do not gainsay the numerous indicators pointing to last year having been yet another year in which Sterling Products returned outstanding production as well as sales performances at the local and international levels, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ramsay Ali has told the Stabroek Business.
During an interview with this newspaper earlier this week, Ali said that what had been an otherwise achievement-filled year for the company had been negatively impacted by the failure, up until now, of its discourses with government, to successfully realize a reduction in high fuel taxes which he conceded had put a squeeze on the company’s overall profits for last year.
Days after the Company’s audited financial report for 2018 had pointed to a number of noteworthy production and sales-related improvements in the company’s overall performance but nonetheless recorded a 30.5% reduction in after tax profit, Ali told this newspaper that the disappointing statistic had been wholly a reflection of the failure of protracted fuel-related engagements between government and Sterling Products, a circumstance which he said had redounded to the company’s considerable disappointment. “We have been talking but, frankly, the discourses have made no real progress; and yes, we are disappointed because it sounds a disappointing note in what has been an otherwise solid year for the company,” Ali said.