Another LandmarkTT challenge

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A com­plaint seek­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion of a sec­ond Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Ltd hous­ing de­vel­op­ment project - this time at Beau­car­ro, Cou­va - has been sent to the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor Bev­er­ly Khan.

The com­plaint was sent to the OPR on Mon­day by Moru­ga ac­tivist Ed­ward Collins. He is rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle, Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Laven­tille West MP. Mar­celle al­so wrote the OPR.

Collins’ com­plaint ad­dressed al­leged “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties” in Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed’s pro­cure­ment process for pro­vi­sion of De­sign-Build-Fi­nance (DBF) ser­vices for the con­struc­tion of sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes at the Beau­car­ro Res­i­den­tial De­vel­op­ment Pack­age A.

How­ev­er, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day fired a ver­bal “shot” in the OPR’s di­rec­tion in re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia’s queries about Collins’ com­plaint.

Collins’ com­plaint on the Beau­car­ro project fol­lows an April 18 com­plaint to the OPR by Con­gress of the Peo­ple’s mem­ber Wen­dell Everse­ly and at­tor­ney/ex-PNM MP Ran­dall Mitchell. They sought and in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pro­cure­ment process un­der­tak­en by Land­mark­TT con­cern­ing the Al­lam­by res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment in San Fer­nan­do. That probe is cur­rent­ly be­ing un­der­tak­en by the OPR

Collins’ com­plaint to the OPR on the Beau­car­ro de­vel­op­ment re­quest­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion and on­go­ing pro­cure­ment con­cern­ing the pro­vi­sion of DBF ser­vices for con­struc­tion of the homes.

The OPR was urged to con­sid­er if im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of the on­go­ing pro­cure­ment process is jus­ti­fied, as there may be an al­leged “breach of the Act.”

Cit­ing Land­mark­TT’s May 8 let­ter for a Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP), Collins said it came to his at­ten­tion that Land­mark­TT has com­menced pro­cure­ment util­is­ing the se­lec­tive ten­der process via the May 8 RFP. That enun­ci­at­ed a clos­ing date and time of June 5th, 2026, at 2 pm.

Cit­ing con­cern, “with the le­gal­i­ty, pro­pri­ety and in­tegri­ty of an on­go­ing pro­cure­ment ex­er­cise,” Collins al­leged the val­ue of the pro­posed award for the project was over $150 mil­lion.

He claimed a manda­to­ry site vis­it for six short­list­ed pro­po­nents to the Beau­car­ro De­vel­op­ment was con­duct­ed by Land­mark­TT on May 14th at 10 am.

“The by­pass of open bid­ding in lieu of se­lec­tive ten­der­ing for a project of this mag­ni­tude, which in­volves crit­i­cal na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture, ap­pears to re­strict com­pe­ti­tion rather than to man­age project com­plex­i­ty.

“The fact that suit­ably qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced con­trac­tors reg­is­tered in the Pro­cure­ment De­pos­i­to­ry were not in­vit­ed to ten­der un­der­mines the prin­ci­ples of trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and val­ue for mon­ey and is whol­ly in­com­pat­i­ble with the spir­it and let­ter of the Act,” Collins claimed.

He urged an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to whether the pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion and, there­after, par­tic­i­pa­tion of short­list­ed pro­po­nents in the pro­cure­ment is jus­ti­fied un­der ex­ist­ing pro­cure­ment law.

Collins queried how Land­mark­TT de­ter­mined the struc­ture and time­line of this pro­cure­ment process, what steps were tak­en to en­sure that par­tic­i­pa­tion was not un­du­ly re­strict­ed; and what spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria/ra­tio­nale in­formed the de­ci­sion to adopt se­lec­tive ten­der­ing. He al­leged the se­lec­tive method­ol­o­gy utilised could re­sult in poor val­ue for mon­ey.

Collins cit­ed fur­ther con­cern that af­ter the OPR’s April 20, 2026, let­ter to Land­mark­TT on the se­lec­tive ten­der­ing process used in the Al­lam­by Project, “... the struc­ture and tim­ing of the pro­cure­ment for the Beau­car­ro De­vel­op­ment, the pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion con­di­tions im­posed on par­tic­i­pa­tion by Land­mark­TT, which have been pre­vi­ous­ly ad­dressed by the Of­fice, high­light bla­tant dis­dain for both the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor and Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion.”

Giv­en the trend of Land­mark­TT’s pre­vi­ous and on­go­ing con­duct, Collins said the Pro­cure­ment Act (Sec­tion 6) pro­vides that pro­cure­ment not con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the act is void and il­le­gal.

“The fact that there ap­pears to be an ab­sence of mean­ing­ful dis­clo­sure as to eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria to short­list pro­po­nents in both the Al­lam­by De­vel­op­ment and now the Beau­car­ro De­vel­op­ment, dis­clos­es a pat­tern of con­cern suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy reg­u­la­to­ry scruti­ny,” he claimed.

Guardian Me­dia’s emailed queries to the OPR on Collins’ let­ter re­ceived no re­ply. Nor was there a re­ply to calls to Land­mark­TT’s CEO Nis­chall Shane Poona.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on Collins’ com­plaint against Land­mark­TT, Ho­sein ad­mit­ted to be­ing un­aware of it.

Ho­sein said, “I’m not aware of any com­plaints be­ing filed. How­ev­er, if that is so, the PNM is free to ob­ject to every sin­gle project that Land­mark­TT does.

“These projects are en­tire­ly fund­ed by the de­vel­op­er and no tax­pay­er mon­ey is be­ing spent and no state land is be­ing trans­ferred. There­fore, it’s pass­ing strange that the OPR board and reg­u­la­tor had no is­sues with se­lec­tive ten­der­ing un­der the PNM’s term in of­fice, where bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars were be­ing spent.”

Ho­sein added, “It’s al­so pass­ing strange the num­ber of com­plaints the OPR and its reg­u­la­tor ig­nored or ne­glect­ed to in­ves­ti­gate un­der the PNM’s term. Very soon, all in­for­ma­tion will come to light and the OPR board and reg­u­la­tor will have many ques­tions to an­swer. In the mean­time, I look for­ward to re­spons­es from the OPR, which we will def­i­nite­ly com­pare to their ac­tions and re­spons­es to com­plaints dur­ing the PNM’s term in of­fice.

“Land­mark­TT will con­tin­ue to work to­wards en­gag­ing de­vel­op­ers to con­struct homes for sale to cit­i­zens at no cost to the tax­pay­ers.”

Cab­i­net dealt with the Beau­car­ro project in April.

CAB­I­NET MINUTE NO. 894 OF APRIL 9, 2026

Con­veyance to Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed of a Par­cel of State Land sit­u­ate at Beau­car­ro Vil­lage, Cou­va, for the De­vel­op­ment of Res­i­den­tial Ac­com­mo­da­tion

Note LLA(26)27, to­geth­er with the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee, was con­sid­ered.

Cab­i­net agreed:

(a) to vary the de­ci­sion record­ed in sub-para­graph(a) of Minute No. 825 of March 28, 2013, to pro­vide for the con­veyance of the site known as Beau­car­ro to Land­mark­TT Prop­er­ties Lim­it­ed (Land­mark­TT) in­stead of to the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (Minute No. 111 of Jan­u­ary 16, 2026 is rel­e­vant);

(b) to the con­veyance, by the is­suance of a State Grant in favour of Land­mark­TT, of the par­cel of State land known as Beau­car­ro, com­pris­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 105,387.3 square me­tres (m2), sit­u­ate at Beau­car­ro Vil­lage, in the Ward of Cou­va, Coun­ty of Ca­roni, iden­ti­fied in reg­is­tered Plan JR 28 filed in the vault of the Sur­veys and Map­ping Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs;

(c) that the con­sid­er­a­tion for the State Grant in re­spect of (b) above be in the sum of $100.00;

(d) that the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al cause to be pre­pared and reg­is­tered the in­stru­ment of con­veyance of Beau­car­ro to Land­mark­TT.