President rejects social media allegations

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has re­ject­ed what it de­scribes as im­prop­er in­sin­u­a­tions cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia re­gard­ing an al­leged fi­nan­cial arrange­ment, in­sist­ing that Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo acts strict­ly with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a state­ment is­sued on April 25, 2026, the Of­fice said it had tak­en note of a pub­li­ca­tion mak­ing claims it con­sid­ers dam­ag­ing to the in­tegri­ty of the of­fice.

The pub­li­ca­tion ref­er­enced an al­leged US$500 mil­lion loan arrange­ment.

The Of­fice re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that the Pres­i­dent is “the au­thor, ar­chi­tect, or wrong­do­er in re­spect of any trans­ac­tion in­volv­ing the State”, adding that pres­i­den­tial func­tions are car­ried out in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws of the Re­pub­lic.

The Of­fice fur­ther point­ed to sec­tion 80(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which pro­vides for the Pres­i­dent to act, where ap­plic­a­ble, on the ad­vice of Cab­i­net or a Min­is­ter act­ing un­der Cab­i­net au­thor­i­ty.

It al­so crit­i­cised the lan­guage used in the so­cial me­dia pub­li­ca­tion, de­scrib­ing ref­er­ences to the Of­fice in re­la­tion to the fi­nan­cial arrange­ment as in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

“It is es­pe­cial­ly re­pug­nant that the ar­ti­cle names the cur­rent hold­er of the Of­fice of Pres­i­dent,” the state­ment said.

The Of­fice warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not main­tain pub­lic trust if its in­sti­tu­tions are sub­ject­ed to in­sult and in­nu­en­do, stress­ing that while democ­ra­cy al­lows for scruti­ny, it does not pro­tect what it called scur­rilous at­tacks.

It added that such pub­li­ca­tions cor­rode re­spect for law­ful au­thor­i­ty, weak­en pub­lic con­fi­dence and dam­age the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic fab­ric of the Re­pub­lic.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said it will is­sue fur­ther state­ments as the facts re­quire.