T&TEC ‘protected list’ existed for decades, former officials say

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

A for­mer se­nior of­fi­cial of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) and a for­mer se­nior pub­lic ser­vant have re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that a so-called “pro­tect­ed list” was cre­at­ed to ben­e­fit Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of­fi­cials and their as­so­ciates, in­sist­ing the sys­tem has ex­ist­ed for decades and was nev­er in­tend­ed to ex­empt any­one from pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills.

The con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar tabled a list in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day con­tain­ing the names of 17 cur­rent and for­mer pub­lic of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, his wife Sharon Row­ley, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and oth­er for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

But Glen­ford Cyrille, who served as T&TEC’s gen­er­al man­ag­er be­tween 2011 and 2012 un­der a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion, said the prac­tice long pre­dates both ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties and has ex­ist­ed for at least 30 years.

“When­ev­er there is an elec­tion, all MPs are af­ford­ed the priv­i­lege of be­ing on the list. All gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion MPs, sen­a­tors and judges and oth­er big shots,” he not­ed.

Cyrille said the list was in­tend­ed as a cus­tomer-ser­vice mech­a­nism through which promi­nent pub­lic of­fi­cials could be no­ti­fied when is­sues arose with their ac­counts and be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to reg­u­larise pay­ments be­fore dis­con­nec­tion.

He said the list was rou­tine­ly up­dat­ed fol­low­ing elec­tions, al­though changes were not al­ways made im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Cer­tain­ly, in her first stint as prime min­is­ter, she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) would have been on the list... They had Mrs Row­ley’s name on the list, and that would hap­pen, eh. The prime min­is­ter’s wife, or if the prime min­is­ter is fe­male, it would be a hus­band or so. They put that be­cause the prime min­is­ter, you ent want he wife and so on to be em­bar­rassed.”

Ad­dress­ing sug­ges­tions that those in­clud­ed were aware of their sta­tus, Cyrille said: “The cus­tomers are not told.”

He ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that the arrange­ment could be per­ceived as un­fair by mem­bers of the pub­lic who face dis­con­nec­tion for un­paid bills.

“It’s a very tick­lish thing, be­cause you’re see­ing all the com­ments of that: ‘If we ow­ing $200-$100, they com­ing in and they cut­ting you, but these big shots and thing...’ Yes, peo­ple will say that. But, you know, that is not—they have to pay. It’s just that they are no­ti­fied and giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pay up their ac­count.”

A for­mer se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, sim­i­lar­ly de­scribed the list as a long­stand­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive tool rather than a mech­a­nism de­signed to shield po­lit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed in­di­vid­u­als from pay­ing their bills.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, min­is­ters, sen­a­tors, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps and oth­er se­nior of­fice hold­ers were of­ten in­clud­ed on the list and con­tact­ed di­rect­ly if is­sues arose with their ac­counts. The source said those in­di­vid­u­als re­mained sub­ject to dis­con­nec­tion if out­stand­ing bills were not set­tled and were not al­lowed to ac­cu­mu­late sig­nif­i­cant ar­rears.

Mean­while, for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter and PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les dis­missed sug­ges­tions that he or oth­ers on the list re­ceived pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

“When the Prime Min­is­ter could give the coun­try the im­pres­sion that this list was cre­at­ed to suit mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, so as to al­low them to con­sume elec­tric­i­ty with­out pay­ing, noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth.”

Gon­za­les said both cur­rent and for­mer T&TEC ex­ec­u­tives had in­formed him that sim­i­lar arrange­ments ap­plied to peo­ple hold­ing sen­si­tive pub­lic po­si­tions. He said those in­di­vid­u­als were typ­i­cal­ly no­ti­fied of ser­vice dis­rup­tions in ad­vance and re­mind­ed to set­tle out­stand­ing bal­ances be­fore dis­con­nec­tion.

He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the is­sue as a po­lit­i­cal dis­trac­tion.

“I re­gard the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­duct in the Par­lia­ment un­der par­lia­men­tary cov­er yes­ter­day (Mon­day) to be most egre­gious, scan­dalous, un­be­com­ing of a prime min­is­ter. But why should we be sur­prised? The Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ues to be­have as her nor­mal self, sup­port­ed by a hap­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble, reck­less Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, des­per­ate for a di­ver­sion from the is­sues that face the gov­er­nance of Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day.”

Row­ley de­nies re­ceiv­ing spe­cial treat­ment

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so re­spond­ed pub­licly, say­ing he was un­aware of any such list, re­ject­ing any sug­ges­tion that he or his wife had failed to pay their elec­tric­i­ty bills.

“I am un­aware of be­ing on any list at T&TEC. I pay all my elec­tric­i­ty bills as and when they be­come due at prop­er­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go. That holds good for my wife as well. I have nev­er re­quest­ed nor was of­fered any pro­tec­tion from TTEC billing op­er­a­tions,” he said in a Face­book post.

In a sep­a­rate so­cial me­dia post, Row­ley sharply crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter.

“For all those who think we have a Prime Min­is­ter look­ing af­ter the se­ri­ous busi­ness of man­ag­ing the coun­try’s af­fairs, I have al­ready ad­vised you that what we have is a hate­ful, dic­ta­to­r­i­al jam­mette who wish­es to be feared like her men­tor,” he said, seem­ing­ly re­fer­ring to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Row­ley lat­er shared an im­age of an elec­tric­i­ty bill show­ing a bal­ance of $1,763.74 due on May 6, 2026. He not­ed that the ac­count re­flect­ed no ar­rears and main­tained that both he and his wife pay their bills in full.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so dis­missed claims made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­gard­ing a pur­port­ed T&TEC “pro­tect­ed list,” say­ing she has no knowl­edge of such a list and has nev­er need­ed one be­cause her util­i­ty bills have al­ways been paid on time.

In a state­ment, Beck­les de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter as “a des­per­ate woman” who has lost favour with the pop­u­la­tion and is now “grasp­ing at straws.”

Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­tions in Par­lia­ment re­flect­ed a leader “cow­er­ing be­hind par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege” while at­tempt­ing to dis­tract from what she said was the UNC’s in­abil­i­ty to ad­dress the coun­try’s re­al is­sues.

Oth­er for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials whose names ap­peared on the list al­so de­nied re­ceiv­ing pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

For­mer min­is­ter Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said that through­out her four-and-a-half years in gov­ern­ment, she nev­er re­ceived any con­ces­sion, pro­tec­tion or spe­cial priv­i­lege re­lat­ing to her elec­tric­i­ty ac­count, which she said re­mains ful­ly up to date. She al­so ques­tioned the de­ci­sion to pub­licly iden­ti­fy in­di­vid­u­als with­out pre­sent­ing ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing.

For­mer min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe like­wise said her ac­count is cur­rent and de­nied ever re­quest­ing or re­ceiv­ing pro­tec­tion from T&TEC’s billing op­er­a­tions.

“Tell Kam­la Sushilla Per­sad-Bisses­sar that I pay my bills, my bills are paid!!! And I’m al­ways in cred­it too. And for the record, I have nev­er re­quest­ed, sought or been of­fered pro­tec­tion from any T&TEC billing op­er­a­tions. Any sug­ges­tion or im­pli­ca­tion to the con­trary is en­tire­ly false and with­out ba­sis. Try­ing to dis­tract the coun­try with this fool­ish­ness is wicked, worth­less and weak. We will not be fooled. We are sick, tired and fed up of you,” she said via Face­book.

Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so re­ject­ed the al­le­ga­tions, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to di­vert at­ten­tion from oth­er is­sues. She chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter to pro­vide ev­i­dence that she had failed to pay her elec­tric­i­ty bills, de­scrib­ing the im­pli­ca­tion as “the lamest” she had seen.

At­tempts to ob­tain a re­sponse from the Prime Min­is­ter, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and T&TEC of­fi­cials have been un­suc­cess­ful.