67 gone from State boards, public offices in 14 months

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

In less than 14 months, 67 in­di­vid­u­als on State boards or in pub­lic of­fices have ei­ther left their po­si­tions, been fired or been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

The 67 peo­ple in­clude those who re­signed, were ter­mi­nat­ed, sent on leave, forced in­to pre-re­tire­ment, had their ap­point­ments re­voked, de­part­ed due to health is­sues or en­tered in­to mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ments un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Many of these in­di­vid­u­als were CEOs, di­rec­tors, ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, chair­men and man­agers.

Out of the 22 peo­ple af­fect­ed this year, two held se­nior po­si­tions at Caribbean Air­lines (CAL).

Last year, 36 in­di­vid­u­als chose to re­sign, were fired, forced out or had their ap­point­ments re­scind­ed.

A tab­u­la­tion showed that last year, nine CAL work­ers, who were part of a lead­er­ship team, in­clud­ing CEO Garvin Madera, stepped down from their roles.

The fig­ure was com­piled by Guardian Me­dia us­ing Google as a re­search tool and var­i­ous me­dia re­ports from June 24, 2025, to Au­gust 4, 2026.

Among the State com­pa­nies that have seen a wave of res­ig­na­tions were CAL, Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT), First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB), and Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

CAL topped the list with 11 work­ers de­part­ing the na­tion­al air­line.

There were four res­ig­na­tions from NGC, while FCB and TSTT each had three in­di­vid­u­als who left their po­si­tions.

Last year, nine ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), in­clud­ing its CEO Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, were fired weeks af­ter the UNC as­sumed of­fice.

Chief of De­fence Staff, Air Vice Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel, al­so faced the axe.

In a shock­ing move, Hay­den Phillip, who served as pro­gramme di­rec­tor of the Pro­gramme for Up­grad­ing Roads Ef­fi­cien­cy (PURE), was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave along with nine oth­er staff mem­bers in No­vem­ber 2025.

This year, five in­di­vid­u­als were sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, one of whom was Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, af­ter the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion com­plained about al­leged VIP treat­ment to busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed while he was im­pris­oned.

An em­ploy­ee of the UNC Ca­roni East con­stituen­cy of­fice was re­cent­ly placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing a probe by po­lice af­ter al­le­ga­tions sur­faced on so­cial me­dia.

The UNC was elect­ed in­to of­fice on April 28, 2025, un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In the first week of Jan­u­ary 2026, David Robin­son re­signed as a di­rec­tor of the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd (NEL).

A post on the T&T Stock Ex­change stat­ed that Robin­son’s res­ig­na­tion took ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 7.

Robin­son was the fourth NEL di­rec­tor to leave the board since Sep­tem­ber 2025.

Two days af­ter Robin­son called it quits, Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane stepped down as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) af­ter giv­ing al­most five years of ser­vice.

Mc­Far­lane cit­ed per­son­al rea­sons for her de­par­ture.

HDC put Wazeer Aleem to act un­til a suit­able can­di­date is found.

The top po­si­tion was ad­ver­tised on the cor­po­ra­tion’s My HDC Home Face­book page, with Ju­ly 27 as the dead­line date.

In Feb­ru­ary, Mervyn Gib­son, the act­ing hu­man re­sources di­rec­tor at WASA, al­so threw in the tow­el, stat­ing that his de­par­ture was his per­son­al choice.

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd deputy CEO-In­ter­na­tion­al Sales, Rahim Mo­hammed, was sent on paid ad­min­is­tra­tive leave from Feb­ru­ary 26, pend­ing the out­come of a probe.

Days lat­er, Mo­hammed re­signed.

The T&T gov­ern­ment has par­tial own­er­ship of An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings.

Mo­hammed, a long-serv­ing ex­ec­u­tive who joined the com­pa­ny in 2017, was most re­cent­ly cred­it­ed with spear­head­ing the launch of the “STR8 VY­BZ” rum col­lec­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ja­maican dance­hall star Vy­bz Kar­tel.

Mo­hammed was ap­point­ed deputy CEO in April 2025.

The Es­tate Man­age­ment Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­BD) re­moved its CEO Er­ic Grif­fith on March 4.

To en­sure con­ti­nu­ity, EM­BD’s board ap­point­ed cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Kavi­ta Sar­ran as act­ing CEO, in ad­di­tion to her ex­ist­ing du­ties.

EM­BD is now on the hunt for a new CEO.

In March, it was re­port­ed that the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, Wayne Dass, had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion.

The res­ig­na­tion took ef­fect on June 12.

Dass took up the po­si­tion on March 5 last year.

On March 6, Neela Mooni­lal-Kissoon an­nounced that she was leav­ing FCB Group as its deputy CEO, op­er­a­tions and ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Mooni­lal-Kissoon was ap­point­ed to the role in De­cem­ber 2023.

She had been em­ployed with the group for 25 years.

The CEO of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T, Ja­son Williams, va­cat­ed his post on March 31 af­ter his con­tract was not re­newed.

lliams, who joined the or­gan­i­sa­tion in 2012, had been in the po­si­tion full-time since 2020.

Ar­lene George has since re­placed Williams.

Al­so re­sign­ing in March was Na­tion­al Flour Mills Ltd CEO Ian Mitchell, end­ing a five-year tenure.

Mitchell said he was mov­ing on to an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Just sev­en months af­ter tak­ing up the act­ing CEO role at CAL, Nir­mala Ra­mai stepped down on April 13, 2026.

Var­ma Khillawan, the com­pa­ny’s vice pres­i­dent of main­te­nance and en­gi­neer­ing, was ap­point­ed to act as CAL’s CEO for three months.

In April, the head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ser­vice, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, was sent on leave as part of a probe in­to the mur­der of act­ing cor­po­ral Anusha Ever­s­ley and the theft of guns and am­mu­ni­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion. ACP Wayne Mys­tar was ap­point­ed to fill the post.

The coun­try learnt of a lead­er­ship shake-up at Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ltd in April, with gen­er­al man­ag­er Shawn Clarke out.

The com­pa­ny con­firmed in a state­ment that Brid­get Rat­tan had been ap­point­ed act­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er fol­low­ing Clarke’s de­par­ture from the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

It was re­port­ed that Clarke was al­leged­ly ter­mi­nat­ed by TSTT, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Am­plia.

CAL lost an­oth­er mem­ber of its se­nior lead­er­ship team in May with the de­par­ture of Nichelle Grander­son, who was the hu­man re­sources vice pres­i­dent, a po­si­tion which she held for on­ly four months.

The air­line has been ac­tive­ly seek­ing to fill these roles, but in­dus­try ex­perts have said it is high­ly un­usu­al to see so many lead­er­ship de­par­tures in such a short pe­ri­od.

In May, chair­man of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny (PFTC), Nyree Al­fon­so, re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, af­ter serv­ing the en­er­gy com­pa­ny for a mere ten months.

On Ju­ly 1, 2025, Al­fon­so, an at­tor­ney, be­came chair­man.

She de­nied sug­ges­tions that she was asked to leave the en­er­gy com­pa­ny, which is un­der Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd.

Al­fon­so said her de­ci­sion was based on per­son­al rea­sons and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties that she wished to ex­plore in her ca­reer.

On Ju­ly 7, First Cit­i­zens Group an­nounced the res­ig­na­tion of Nee­sha Ramkha­lawan, who served as its act­ing group chief risk of­fi­cer, bring­ing an end to a ca­reer at the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

TSTT was dealt a hard blow when two di­rec­tors re­cent­ly re­signed.

The first was Kyle Mal­oney, who stepped down from the post on Ju­ly 3.

Days lat­er, on Ju­ly 22, Nadi­ra Prab­hu­di­al left the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider, hav­ing been ap­point­ed to the TSTT board in June of 2025.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that the two res­ig­na­tions were linked to in­ter­nal dis­agree­ments or gov­er­nance is­sues at the State-owned telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, in­sist­ing that pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ments out­side of the com­pa­ny prompt­ed their de­par­tures.

The sud­den res­ig­na­tions re­duced TSTT’s board to three mem­bers.

They are chair­man Kern Dass and di­rec­tors Randy Ramtha­hal and Cas­sili­na Kelshall.

Last Tues­day, Daniel Thorn­hill was named as a new TSTT di­rec­tor.

In late Ju­ly, an em­ploy­ee of the UNC’s Ca­roni East con­stituen­cy of­fice was placed on im­me­di­ate ad­min­is­tra­tive leave af­ter al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing the staff mem­ber sur­faced on so­cial me­dia.

In a state­ment is­sued, Ca­roni East MP Dr Rishad Seecher­an said the of­fice be­came aware of al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing one of its em­ploy­ees that had been cir­cu­lat­ing on Face­book.

“Up­on be­ing made aware of these al­le­ga­tions, im­me­di­ate ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tion was tak­en. The em­ploy­ee in ques­tion has been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” the state­ment said.

Last month, Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe was sent on leave, days af­ter the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion com­plained about al­leged VIP treat­ment be­ing giv­en to busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, who was in­car­cer­at­ed at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca un­der the Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der. It was lat­er re­vealed he was sent on four months of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­ca­tion leave.

A no­tice in the T&T Gazette dat­ed Au­gust 10, 2026, by act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Fi­nance, V Ma­haraj, showed that Ar­joon Har­ri­paul had re­signed from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) board with ef­fect from June 17, 2026.

How­ev­er, the no­tice al­so showed that Har­ri­paul was ap­point­ed chair­man of the HSF from June 30, 2026, for a pe­ri­od of three years.

The Gazette al­so stat­ed that the term of Ewart Williams, a mem­ber of the HSF, ex­pired on April 27, 2026.

CEO of the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, Nir­mala De­bysingh, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave on Au­gust 3 with full ben­e­fits and salary.

On Au­gust 4, the coun­try woke up to the news that FCB’s CEO, Ja­son Julien, would leave the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned bank on Au­gust 31, af­ter serv­ing in the po­si­tion for nine months.

In­sist­ing he was not forced out, Julien said he was pre­sent­ed with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work for a US com­pa­ny.

Dr Alvin Hi­laire’s ap­point­ment as Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor was re­voked on June 24, 2025, by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, at the re­quest of Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Cab­i­net.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai as­sumed the role of Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor the next day.

Hi­laire filed a law­suit against the State claim­ing he was wrong­ful­ly dis­missed.

Last Ju­ly, TSTT CEO Kent West­ern re­signed and was im­me­di­ate­ly re­placed by Keino Cox as act­ing CEO.

West­ern had been pro­mot­ed to CEO in Sep­tem­ber 2024, fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of Lisa Agard in No­vem­ber 2023.

There has been a ma­jor shake-up at WASA with the fir­ing of Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day as its CEO in June 2025, six months af­ter he as­sumed the top post.

Nine oth­er se­nior ex­ec­u­tives were al­so dis­missed from WASA weeks af­ter the UNC was elect­ed in­to of­fice.

The day the ex­ec­u­tive team was sent pack­ing, WASA ap­proved a new or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture which took ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly.

WASA re­placed Hal­l­i­day with Jee­van Joseph.

How­ev­er, five months af­ter tak­ing up the CEO po­si­tion, Joseph called it quits last No­vem­ber, cit­ing per­son­al rea­sons.

Last Ju­ly, Ger­ald Ramdeen was a re­place­ment for Dr Randy Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who had been ap­point­ed NGC chair­man in June, be­fore his ap­point­ment was re­voked a month lat­er.

Erik Kesku­la stepped down in Ju­ly of 2025 as CEO of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, with his res­ig­na­tion tak­ing ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 30.

The board ap­point­ed Ker­ry Ram­per­sad to act as CEO.

The same day Kesku­la an­nounced his de­par­ture, Na­tion­al En­er­gy pres­i­dent Ver­non Pal­too pro­ceed­ed on pre-re­tire­ment leave af­ter serv­ing more than two decades at the State-owned en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ta­tor.

Pal­too went on re­tire­ment leave ahead of his of­fi­cial re­tire­ment in April 2026.

Sources claimed Pal­too was forced in­to pre-re­tire­ment leave.

T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion gen­er­al man­ag­er Chrisal­ston Belle re­signed ef­fec­tive Au­gust 31, 2025, end­ing a 33-year-long ca­reer with the com­mis­sion.

Belle was ap­point­ed gen­er­al man­ag­er on Jan­u­ary 1 and was on pro­ba­tion.

It was re­port­ed that FCB’s group CEO Karen Dar­basie had re­signed from her post, but she had pro­ceed­ed on va­ca­tion leave last Au­gust, months ahead of her re­tire­ment from the com­pa­ny.

Af­ter serv­ing the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) for 13 years, Haz­ar Ho­sein re­signed in Au­gust 2025.

Shelly Sul­tani-Khan was ap­point­ed to act.

A source at LSA claimed that the mo­ment the top­ic of res­ig­na­tion arose, Ho­sein threw in the tow­el.

Ver­li­er Quan-Vie, NGC’s vice pres­i­dent for com­mer­cial, re­signed on Sep­tem­ber 30 last year.

Last Oc­to­ber, the Chief of De­fence Staff, Air Vice Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel, was fired and re­placed by Cap­tain Don Po­lo.

Toni Sir­ju-Ram­nar­ine re­signed in Oc­to­ber as pres­i­dent of NGC Green Com­pa­ny, cit­ing health rea­sons.

Lake As­phalt of T&T act­ing CEO Sweda­ka Matthews was sent on leave in No­vem­ber.

Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd pres­i­dent Do­minic Ram­per­sad had al­so tak­en up ear­ly re­tire­ment ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 21, 2025.

Hours af­ter Ram­per­sad’s ex­it, NGC re­voked the ap­point­ment of di­rec­tor Dr Ah­mad Khan, a mere four months af­ter he was in­stalled at the en­er­gy com­pa­ny.

On No­vem­ber 24, 2025, Romel Lal­loo, 71, was ter­mi­nat­ed from the board of Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd (TPHL), three months af­ter his ap­point­ment by the UNC.

Lal­loo said he was false­ly ac­cused of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment by an em­ploy­ee.

The coun­try ex­pressed shock at the sud­den ter­mi­na­tion of Ex­im Bank CEO Navin Dook­er­an in De­cem­ber 2025.

Dook­er­an was sum­moned by the bank’s new chair­man, Ed­win Chari­ah and in­formed he was dis­missed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect af­ter six and a half years in the role.

No rea­son was giv­en for his dis­missal.

Hay­den Phillip, who served as pro­gramme di­rec­tor of PURE, an agency in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave along with nine oth­er staff mem­bers in No­vem­ber 2025.

Ap­point­ed on Au­gust 1, 2025, as pres­i­dent of Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd, Dr Cur­tis Den­nie re­signed on De­cem­ber 31.

Re­tired head of the pub­lic ser­vice Reynold Coop­er said peo­ple re­sign, take ear­ly re­tire­ment or are dis­missed from State boards for var­i­ous rea­sons.

How­ev­er, Coop­er said when mem­bers of State boards leave in rapid suc­ces­sion, there are reper­cus­sions.

“When you have a change in man­agers very reg­u­lar­ly, you have the new per­son com­ing in and has to learn the work… and learn it very fast. And most like­ly (they) may make er­rors based on in­ex­pe­ri­ence. But it does af­fect the sta­bil­i­ty of the pub­lic ser­vice when you have those changes hap­pen­ing on a fre­quent ba­sis.”

He said if some­one is dis­missed, they should be told why.

“To sum­marise, per­sons who have been dis­missed or asked to re­sign should be giv­en a rea­son. So they will know. And the per­son should be made to de­fend them­selves. Ei­ther ac­cept it or de­fend it.”

Coop­er, who served the pub­lic ser­vice for over three decades, em­pha­sised that when a CEO, chair­man, man­ag­er or di­rec­tor is placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, the State should pro­vide time­ly up­dates.

He point­ed out that peo­ple are sent on leave with or with­out pay.

The sus­pend­ed per­son who re­ceives their salary can still pay their bills, where­as the in­di­vid­ual whose salary has been sus­pend­ed would find it dif­fi­cult to man­age and would feel vic­timised.

“Ad­min­is­tra­tive leave should not ex­ceed, in my view, one month. Be­yond that, it means then you are be­ing vic­timised, in my view. If you are sent on a long leave and there is no in­ves­ti­ga­tion and it keeps go­ing on and on, per­sons may want to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion.”

Coop­er said peo­ple who are sent on leave nor­mal­ly re­turn to work.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of them I know came back out to work. In a very min­i­mal case, we find that af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they were dis­missed on the in­for­ma­tion that they had.”

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse from gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were un­suc­ces­ful.

Nine months af­ter be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed as a di­rec­tor at TPHL on al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, Romel Lal­loo told the Sun­day Guardian on Thurs­day that no in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed and the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim re­mained un­known.

Lal­loo felt he was tar­get­ed for rais­ing con­cerns.

“And every­body was hush-hush about it. It was a ploy to get rid of me,” he claimed.

Lal­loo is a qual­i­fied ac­coun­tant and has a back­ground in fi­nance.

The dis­missal, he said, left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Let me tell you some­thing, what they did to me I have to put it be­hind my back. My name stink up all over the place…all over Trinidad. Look, I don’t want to hear noth­ing about them,” he said, re­fer­ring to the UNC.

Asked if he in­tend­ed to take le­gal ac­tion, Lal­loo said no.

Since 1983, Lal­loo has been a sup­port­er of the par­ty.

Lal­loo said he was wait­ing for the UNC can­di­date to come to his area to can­vass votes for the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

“I in­tend to em­bar­rass him,” he said.

Since his ap­point­ment was re­voked by NGC last No­vem­ber, Dr Ahamad Khan said he had re­ceived no word from the en­er­gy com­pa­ny re­gard­ing the rea­son/s for his ter­mi­na­tion.

“I still don’t know,” Khan said dur­ing a brief tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion.

Hav­ing been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave nine months ago as pro­gramme di­rec­tor of PURE, Hay­den Phillip ad­vised the Sun­day Guardian to di­rect all ques­tions to the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.

“I can’t com­ment on that,” was Phillip’s curt re­sponse.

Nyree Al­fon­so, who stepped down as chair­man of PFTC three months ago, said she has since re­sumed her prac­tice full-time as an at­tor­ney.

She said the po­si­tion as chair­man of a board is part-time.

“I fell back in­to my nor­mal dai­ly rou­tine and have been con­cen­trat­ing on my work and try­ing to lend my broad ex­pe­ri­ence not on­ly here, but re­gion­al­ly.”

Last month, Al­fon­so, a mar­itime law ex­pert, was ap­point­ed to the Com­mis­sion of In­quiry, es­tab­lished by Guyana Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali to in­ves­ti­gate the tragedy sur­round­ing the MV Bari­ma, which cap­sized on Ju­ly 18, while trav­el­ling from George­town to Port Kai­tu­ma, in what has be­come the coun­try’s dead­liest mar­itime tragedy, with more than 70 pas­sen­gers los­ing their lives.

“I seem to gen­er­ate very strong emo­tions. Ei­ther you strong­ly dis­like me…you can’t stand my guts, or strong­ly like me. I am sure the peo­ple out here who can’t stand my best bone, well that is par for the course. I am not a politi­cian. I am not look­ing for every­body to love me. I am not ask­ing for any­one’s vote.”

Al­fon­so stat­ed she has no ran­cour with any­one.