Camille, Vandana clash over Children’s Authority

Ke­jan Haynes

The bat­tle be­tween So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit and Op­po­si­tion MP for Trinci­ty/Mal­oney Camille Robin­son-Reg­is over the man­age­ment of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty in­ten­si­fied in Par­lia­ment on Sat­ur­day, with al­le­ga­tions of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, ques­tions about the han­dling of chil­dren in State care and com­pet­ing claims over the Au­thor­i­ty’s fund­ing.

Robin­son-Reg­is ac­cused Mo­hit of fail­ing to pro­vide prop­er over­sight of the Au­thor­i­ty and al­leged that the min­is­ter had knowl­edge of sex­u­al abuse con­cerns at some res­i­den­tial chil­dren’s homes. Mo­hit re­ject­ed the claims, call­ing them un­true, while ac­cus­ing the Au­thor­i­ty’s board of un­der­min­ing the Gov­ern­ment and rais­ing con­cerns about its own han­dling of chil­dren.

The dis­pute con­tin­ued af­ter the de­bate, with Robin­son-Reg­is is­su­ing a state­ment con­demn­ing Mo­hit’s at­tacks on the Au­thor­i­ty’s board as “dis­taste­ful, ir­re­spon­si­ble, and whol­ly un­be­com­ing of a Min­is­ter”.

Con­tribut­ing to the 2026-2027 bud­get de­bate on Fri­day, Robin­son-Reg­is ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of the Au­thor­i­ty, claim­ing it was op­er­at­ing with­out ad­e­quate re­sources, strate­gic di­rec­tion or ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the min­istry.

She said the Au­thor­i­ty’s al­lo­ca­tion had fall­en from $14.7 mil­lion to $8.1 mil­lion, leav­ing it strug­gling to meet its oblig­a­tions. She al­so raised con­cerns about work­ing con­di­tions, in­clud­ing mould and leaks in of­fices, and the heavy case­loads man­aged by child pro­tec­tion work­ers.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­leged that Mo­hit had been present dur­ing a meet­ing at a res­i­den­tial chil­dren’s home when racial­ly charged re­marks were made about Afro-Trinida­di­an chil­dren in the fa­cil­i­ty’s care.

She claimed the man­ag­er had said “they bring­ing too many N-word chil­dren and this is a home for ‘C’ chil­dren”.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­leged that the min­is­ter had not chal­lenged the re­marks and said she un­der­stood that the op­er­a­tors of the home were friends of Mo­hit.

She al­so claimed rec­om­men­da­tions to re­lo­cate chil­dren from the fa­cil­i­ty had not been act­ed up­on, warn­ing that chil­dren en­trust­ed to the State could be at risk of abuse by those re­spon­si­ble for their care.

The Op­po­si­tion MP fur­ther raised con­cerns about chil­dren be­ing moved be­tween res­i­den­tial fa­cil­i­ties, claim­ing some had been placed in homes for se­nior cit­i­zens.

“It is a sad state of af­fairs for chil­dren un­der the care of the State at this time,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so ques­tioned the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Mo­hit and the Au­thor­i­ty’s board, which she said had been ap­point­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion and was due to serve un­til Oc­to­ber 20, 2026.

She claimed the board had re­ceived lit­tle com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the min­is­ter and was be­ing left at the mer­cy of the min­istry when mak­ing de­ci­sions.

Mo­hit re­jects al­le­ga­tions, calls board "Wicked PNM Board"

Re­spond­ing in Par­lia­ment on Sat­ur­day, Mo­hit de­nied Robin­son-Reg­is’s al­le­ga­tions about racial re­marks made in her pres­ence at a chil­dren’s home.

“That is not true. Garbage,” she said.

Mo­hit said the Gov­ern­ment had pro­vid­ed $178 mil­lion to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty in the 2026 fis­cal year, ex­ceed­ing its ap­proved al­lo­ca­tion of $150 mil­lion.

She said the Au­thor­i­ty had al­so re­ceived more than $80 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, apart from its month­ly al­lo­ca­tion of $8.1 mil­lion, and that she had re­cent­ly pro­vid­ed an­oth­er $8 mil­lion to help it pay out­stand­ing bills.

Mo­hit re­ject­ed claims that she had failed to en­gage the Au­thor­i­ty, say­ing she had held nu­mer­ous meet­ings with the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, she ques­tioned why she should com­mu­ni­cate ex­ten­sive­ly with the board, which she ac­cused of un­der­min­ing the Gov­ern­ment.

“I know. Why must I com­mu­ni­cate ex­ces­sive­ly with a board who is re­ceiv­ing ad­vice from Trinci­ty/Mal­oney?” she asked. "Speak­er, she should ask the board mem­bers when the new act­ing CEO take of­fice which one of them told her or use racial rants again, sir. When she when she took the seat to act, ask them about that. Ask your board about that. Your PNM board, your wicked PNM board,"

Mo­hit al­so claimed that em­ploy­ees of the Au­thor­i­ty did not sup­port the cur­rent board and were ea­ger for its de­par­ture.

She de­fend­ed her han­dling of the Au­thor­i­ty, say­ing she had worked with the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, ac­counts unit and oth­er of­fi­cials to se­cure ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.

The min­is­ter al­so turned the al­le­ga­tions of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion against the board, cit­ing min­utes in which she said mem­bers dis­cussed a pref­er­ence for plac­ing a child of African de­scent and Chris­t­ian faith in long- or medi­um-term fos­ter care.

“Where is your voice on that?” Mo­hit asked Robin­son-Reg­is.

She said she had writ­ten to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al about the board and would com­mu­ni­cate with its mem­bers in writ­ing be­cause she did not trust them.

Mo­hit al­so raised con­cerns about the Au­thor­i­ty’s op­er­a­tions when she took of­fice, al­leg­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in its records, fu­el ex­pen­di­ture and trans­porta­tion arrange­ments.

She said the Gov­ern­ment had re­duced the Au­thor­i­ty’s fu­el bill by $50,000 af­ter ques­tion­ing the ex­pen­di­ture and claimed of­fi­cials had been un­able to lo­cate some chil­dren for whom res­i­den­tial care pay­ments were be­ing made.

Mo­hit said she had re­ferred a mat­ter con­cern­ing the Au­thor­i­ty to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and that it had been sent to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“If I re­ceive al­le­ga­tions, I take it to my AG, and it’s go­ing to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is hits back

In a state­ment is­sued af­ter the par­lia­men­tary de­bate, Robin­son-Reg­is con­demned Mo­hit’s crit­i­cism of the Au­thor­i­ty’s board, ar­gu­ing that its mem­bers were ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent un­der Sec­tion 7(2) of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Act and brought pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise to the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren.

She said pub­lic at­tacks on board mem­bers risked dis­cour­ag­ing qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als from serv­ing on statu­to­ry bod­ies.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so re­ject­ed Mo­hit’s sug­ges­tion that she had been ad­vis­ing the board, de­scrib­ing the al­le­ga­tion as false and an at­tempt to politi­cise an is­sue re­quir­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty.

She said the min­is­ter’s ad­mis­sion that she had not met with the board was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling.

“How can a Min­is­ter pub­licly con­demn a statu­to­ry body with­out first en­gag­ing its mem­bers, un­der­stand­ing its con­cerns, and ful­fill­ing her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide ef­fec­tive over­sight?” Robin­son-Reg­is asked.

She said the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren should not be­come a tool for po­lit­i­cal grand­stand­ing.

“Our chil­dren de­serve lead­er­ship ground­ed in ac­count­abil­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment, not pub­lic the­atrics and po­lit­i­cal scape­goat­ing,” she said.