The Isle of Man government’s Department for Enterprise is still trying to wriggle around the embarrassment of a huge debt incurred by the TT race merchandise supplier it commissioned for the 2023 event – a firm which then went spectacularly bust.
To keep the subject in focus, Manx politician John Wannenburgh recently asked Department for Enterprise minister Tim Johnston how much the company owes and what’s being done to recover it. Wannenburgh, who is a Member of the House of Keys (Manx parliament) for the Douglas North constituency, received a written update answer from Johnston. In this, he said his department is “making every effort” to recover money owed by the former supplier, a now-defunct company called Cube International.
Johnston admitted the amount owed stands at more than £174,000. That includes unpaid fees from Cube’s 2023 TT contract, as well as late payment penalties added before the debt was formally registered. The minister went on to insist the government is exploring all options, with support from its Attorney General’s Chambers, to recover the outstanding money through an ongoing liquidation process – after two years of apparently getting nowhere.