Trade Minister Vasant Bharath is looking at issues related to a vote by a number of National Flour Mills directors to have chairman Jacqueline Burgess removed from the State food company.

This was disclosed yesterday by National Enterprises Ltd chairman Kenny Lue Chee Lip following NEL's annual meeting at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain.

NEL is the major stockholder of NFM shares and Bharath is the line minister for NFM.

Lue Chee Lip was asked yesterday about a meeting at NFM last Friday where a number of company directors voted that Burgess should be removed.

One of the directors was not present at the meeting.

"All I can say is that the matter is being addressed by their line Minister (Bharath) and after that hopefully, the issue will be resolved," Lue Chee Lip said.

Shareholders of NFM raised concerns at the NEL meeting over the management of the company, which they said was being run like a "political football".

One shareholder argued that it was unfortunate that the Corporation Sole, Minister of Finance, was the one with the power to appoint directors to the board of NFM and not the NEL board.

Anthony Arundel, another shareholder, said he attended the NFM's annual general meeting recently, and he got the impression that the company was being run like a political football.

"Because this year we were not able to get any dividends at all. The price of grain has gone up considerably because of the (North American) drought but it seems like the directors don't seem very willing to raise the price of flour which is really and truly not business-like. It is political thinking to keep these items low."

Arundel said if NFM did not want to operate like a business and focus on making a profit in order to pay out dividends, NEL should buy out the shares of the other shareholders.

Responding to concerns raised by the shareholAd the NEL board had written to the Ministry of Finance on the issues at NFM.

Lue Chee Lip said the Corporation Sole could overturn decisions made by the NFM board.