Boardroom purge

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Be­tween June and De­cem­ber this year, more than a dozen State board of­fi­cials, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers and even the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor have ei­ther been fired, forced in­to pre-re­tire­ment leave, re­signed, had their ap­point­ments re­voked or en­tered in­to mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ments since the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice in April.

Of the 16 of­fi­cials who de­part­ed State com­pa­nies af­ter the UNC took of­fice, five were re­tained un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The ter­mi­na­tions, re­vo­ca­tions of ap­point­ments, forced pre-re­tire­ments and mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tions in­volved 14 males and two fe­males across the boards or ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB), Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT), Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA), Na­tion­al En­er­gy (NE), Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd (HP­CL), Cen­tral Bank (CB), Caribbean Air­lines (CAL), Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd (TPHL), Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Ltd (PPG­PL), Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co) and the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of T&T (Ex­im­Bank). These changes oc­curred over the past sev­en months.

The five of­fi­cials ap­point­ed un­der the UNC were Jee­van Joseph, Dr Ah­mad Khan, Romel Lal­loo, Dr Randy Ra­mad­har Singh and Cur­tis Den­nie.

For­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire’s ap­point­ment was re­voked on June 24 by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, at the re­quest of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Cab­i­net. Sources said the de­ci­sion was tak­en be­cause Hi­laire was not co­op­er­at­ing in pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­lat­ing to the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change cri­sis, among oth­er rea­sons.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai as­sumed the role of Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor the very next day.

“I’d rather be fired for do­ing my job, than for not do­ing my job,” Hi­laire said in re­sponse to the re­vo­ca­tion.

Hi­laire has since filed a law­suit against the State, claim­ing he was wrong­ful­ly dis­missed.

In June, Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day was fired as WASA’s CEO just six months af­ter his ap­point­ment un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. He was re­placed by act­ing CEO Jee­van Joseph.

Last month, in a sur­prise move, Joseph ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion, cit­ing per­son­al rea­sons af­ter just five months at the util­i­ty com­pa­ny. WASA’s act­ing di­rec­tor of cor­po­rate ser­vices, Dain Ma­haraj, was ap­point­ed act­ing CEO.

In Ju­ly, TSTT CEO Kent West­ern re­signed and was im­me­di­ate­ly re­placed by Keino Cox as act­ing CEO. West­ern had been pro­mot­ed to CEO in Sep­tem­ber 2024, fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of Lisa Agard in No­vem­ber 2023.

Erik Kesku­la stepped down as CEO of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um in Ju­ly 2025, with his res­ig­na­tion tak­ing ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 30. He was re­placed by act­ing CEO Ker­ry Ram­per­sad.

The ap­point­ment of NGC’s chair­man proved con­tro­ver­sial. In Ju­ly, at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen was an­nounced as chair­man, de­spite the UNC Gov­ern­ment hav­ing se­lect­ed Dr Randy Ra­mad­har Singh for the post on June 5. Ra­mad­har Singh’s ab­sence from ma­jor pub­lic en­gage­ments fu­elled spec­u­la­tion about the ap­point­ment.

Ramdeen’s name had re­port­ed­ly been pro­posed in June but with­drawn fol­low­ing ob­jec­tions from sev­er­al Cab­i­net min­is­ters. De­spite his con­tro­ver­sial le­gal his­to­ry, he was lat­er ap­point­ed.

Ramdeen and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan were ar­rest­ed and charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit cor­rup­tion, mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and mon­ey laun­der­ing, stem­ming from al­le­ga­tions of kick­backs in­volv­ing State le­gal briefs be­tween 2010 and 2015. Those charges were dropped in 2022.

On Au­gust 25, Haz­ar Ho­sein re­signed from the Land Set­tle­ment Agency af­ter 26 years of ser­vice. A source said Ho­sein stepped down once the top­ic of res­ig­na­tion arose. Shel­ley Sul­tani-Khan was ap­point­ed to act.

It was al­so re­port­ed that FCB group CEO Karen Dar­basie had re­signed, but she had in­stead pro­ceed­ed on va­ca­tion leave in Au­gust 2025, months ahead of her re­tire­ment.

In Sep­tem­ber, NE pres­i­dent Ver­non Pal­too pro­ceed­ed on pre-re­tire­ment leave af­ter more than two decades at the State-owned en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ta­tor. Pal­too con­firmed he went on leave on Sep­tem­ber 29, ahead of his of­fi­cial re­tire­ment in April 2026. Vice pres­i­dent of cor­po­rate ser­vices and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment Mar­cia May­nard as­sumed the role of act­ing pres­i­dent. Sources said Pal­too was forced in­to pre-re­tire­ment leave.

CAL CEO Garvin Madera en­tered in­to a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment in Sep­tem­ber, with his ex­it tak­ing ef­fect in Oc­to­ber. This fol­lowed a board shake-up and an ul­ti­ma­tum from Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the air­line’s man­age­ment.

On Sep­tem­ber 30, Ver­li­er Quan-Vie, NGC’s vice pres­i­dent for com­mer­cial, re­signed. She was the last se­nior lead­er­ship team mem­ber ap­point­ed un­der for­mer pres­i­dent Mark Lo­quan to step down af­ter Lo­quan’s re­tire­ment in Au­gust 2024.

Romel Lal­loo was fired from the board of Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings just three months af­ter his ap­point­ment by the UNC. A let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 24, 2025, signed by Her­itage’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Joanne Sinanans­ingh, gave no rea­son for his dis­missal.

Lal­loo, 71, told Guardian Me­dia he was false­ly ac­cused of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment by an em­ploy­ee. He said he was nev­er in­formed of the iden­ti­ty of the al­leged vic­tim, nor of where or when the in­ci­dent al­leged­ly oc­curred. He said he wrote to Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Oc­to­ber 18 but re­ceived no re­sponse.

Days be­fore Lal­loo’s dis­missal, it emerged that the ap­point­ment of NGC di­rec­tor Dr Ah­mad Khan had been re­voked. While ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ed that Khan had re­signed, he lat­er con­firmed he was no longer a board mem­ber.

Ap­point­ed in Ju­ly as one of sev­en NGC di­rec­tors, Khan said he re­fused to act as a “rub­ber stamp” and chal­lenged de­ci­sions at the com­pa­ny. A source close to Khan said he was se­ri­ous about his fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Khan’s ex­it co­in­cid­ed with PPG­PL pres­i­dent Do­minic Ram­per­sad be­ing asked to pro­ceed on pre-re­tire­ment leave. An in­ter­nal memo in­di­cat­ed Ram­per­sad had tak­en ear­ly re­tire­ment ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 21, 2025, af­ter 25 years with the com­pa­ny.

The most re­cent ex­it was that of Ex­im­Bank CEO Navin Dook­er­an. On De­cem­ber 5, Dook­er­an was sum­moned by the bank’s new chair­man, Ed­win Chari­ah, and in­formed he was dis­missed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect af­ter six and a half years in the role.

“I am proud of what we ac­com­plished dur­ing my tenure, and I wish the best for the in­sti­tu­tion and the coun­try,” Dook­er­an said.

This was fol­lowed by news of the res­ig­na­tion of Plipde­co pres­i­dent Dr Cur­tis Den­nie. His res­ig­na­tion will take ef­fect on De­cem­ber 31. Den­nie as­sumed the po­si­tion in Au­gust.

An in­ter­nal memo dat­ed De­cem­ber 10, is­sued by Plipde­co chair­man Ram­nar­ine Per­sad, con­firmed Den­nie’s de­ci­sion. The board said Den­nie was in­stru­men­tal in strength­en­ing op­er­a­tions, fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion and en­hanc­ing the port’s po­si­tion as a lead­ing in­dus­tri­al hub.

(Put in box)

Ra­goonath: ‘A good bit of the peo­ple whom this UNC would have ap­point­ed to the boards should not be there’

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said it is ex­pect­ed that State boards would change when a new gov­ern­ment as­sumes of­fice.

He said gov­ern­ments some­times ap­point di­rec­tors in haste, on­ly to lat­er re­alise they are not the right fit.

“That is why they would have re­align­ments. So it doesn’t shed a bad light on them… it shows that they are work­ing and con­stant­ly im­prov­ing,” he said.

Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed some di­rec­tors may have ques­tioned cer­tain de­ci­sions, which may not have aligned with Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy at this stage.

“Every Gov­ern­ment would hear com­plaints of nepo­tism, favouritism and cor­rup­tion,” he said, adding that it was for the Prime Min­is­ter to act if wrong­do­ing was sus­pect­ed.

He said he had no is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment re­plac­ing di­rec­tors and CEOs eight months af­ter tak­ing of­fice.

“A good bit of the peo­ple whom this UNC would have ap­point­ed to the boards should not be there. That’s my opin­ion. But they are par­ty sup­port­ers… they have suf­fered in the vine­yards for how­ev­er long… and the Gov­ern­ment now has to re­ward them.”

He said whether those di­rec­tors could do the job or not, the par­ty in pow­er of­ten feels oblig­ed to re­pay its sup­port­ers with board ap­point­ments.