BOARD MUST GO

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­[email protected]

The board of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of T&T has been called on to re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly by Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Van­dana Mo­hit.

She made the call dur­ing a con­fer­ence at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day, as she said the au­thor­i­ty is fac­ing fi­nan­cial is­sues that are deeply trou­bling and were caused by al­leged pro­longed fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment and a lack of over­sight.

“To­day, I call for the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of the cur­rent board of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go…The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty now finds it­self mired in a se­ri­ous fi­nan­cial de­ba­cle with li­a­bil­i­ties dat­ing as far back as 2020, re­port­ed­ly reach­ing in the vicin­i­ty of $77 mil­lion dol­lars and count­ing,” Mo­hit said.

“There are cred­i­ble con­cerns re­gard­ing friv­o­lous ex­pen­di­ture and in­flat­ed hir­ing prac­tices, which have com­pound­ed the au­thor­i­ty’s fi­nan­cial stress. The in­evitable con­se­quences of this ac­tion is the in­abil­i­ty of the au­thor­i­ty to meet its oblig­a­tions to crit­i­cal sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers, plac­ing op­er­a­tional con­ti­nu­ity at risk.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hit, a min­istry au­dit found that the au­thor­i­ty owes $23 mil­lion to two se­cu­ri­ty firms, $8 mil­lion in gra­tu­ity pay­ments to em­ploy­ees and more than $1.5 mil­lion in staff health in­sur­ance.

She al­leged that de­spite the fi­nan­cial is­sues re­sult­ing in some cen­tres for chil­dren not even hav­ing guar­an­teed ac­cess to food, a de­ci­sion was tak­en to pur­chase an ice mak­er for more than $300,000.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Mo­hit, the most con­cern­ing thing is that the au­thor­i­ty al­so owes the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIS) and Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR).

“The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty failed to re­mit statu­to­ry de­duc­tions to the NIS and BIR de­spite these monies be­ing de­duct­ed from our em­ploy­ees. As of Sep­tem­ber 2025, $6 mil­lion plus for BIR, and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance, $4 mil­lion plus,” she said.

Asked if a re­port has been made to po­lice, she stat­ed that a de­ci­sion was not tak­en to do so yet.

“The min­istry’s in­ter­nal au­dit team would have gone in­to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and aris­ing out of that, we are dis­cov­er­ing these mat­ters that I raised here to­day. The au­dit is still hap­pen­ing as we speak, so when I get the fi­nal re­port, then we can de­cide on those mat­ters,” Mo­hit said.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty board is led by chair­man Mar­sha Bai­ley and deputy chair­man Jen­nifer Bou­caud-Blake. Oth­er board mem­bers in­clude: Dr Na­tal­ie Dick, Keon Cun­ning­ham, Denyse Gou­veia, Sule Joseph, Lau­ra Davis, Kit­ty Al Ho­sein-Gar­cia, Re­bec­ca Dip­nar­ine, Mar­i­on Kent, Jemi­la Mas­si­ah-Gilbert, Dr Kir­bi Ram­per­sad, Natasha Skin­ner-Rocke and Nadel­la Oya.

The Bai­ley-led board was ap­point­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2024 un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed chair­man Bai­ley for com­ment yes­ter­day. She said a state­ment would be re­leased in re­sponse but none was forth­com­ing up to press time. 

How­ev­er, an­oth­er me­dia out­let quot­ed her say­ing, “The board is as­ton­ished and re­al­ly tak­en aback that the min­is­ter would take this par­tic­u­lar stance, when the board has made every ef­fort since she came in­to of­fice, in ac­cor­dance with our act, to en­sure we meet our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and move the process for­ward.”