FOIA shows $160,000 Christmas event at OPM with bills still unpaid

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ke­[email protected]

Records ob­tained un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­veal that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter host­ed a $160,135 Christ­mas staff event at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, even as min­istries were asked to lim­it fes­tive spend­ing. A sec­ond Christ­mas event, de­scribed as a “sup­per”, how­ev­er, was fi­nanced from the pro­ceeds of a pri­or tick­et­ed din­ner, at no cost to the State.

The FOIA re­quest sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Jan­u­ary 9, 2026, showed that be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2025 and the date the re­quest was processed, the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre host­ed a se­ries of events, in­clud­ing the End of Year Staff Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Christ­mas Event and the Prime Min­is­ter’s Christ­mas Sup­per.

The re­quest sought records list­ing all events held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre dur­ing this pe­ri­od, fi­nan­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion in­clud­ing in­voic­es, pur­chase or­ders, con­tracts, quo­ta­tions and pay­ment records for cater­ing, en­ter­tain­ment, dé­cor, au­dio-vi­su­al and equip­ment rentals, se­cu­ri­ty and staff sup­port, as well as de­tails of pay­ments made, out­stand­ing bal­ances and names of per­sons or or­gan­i­sa­tions paid.

The records showed that the End of Year Staff Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Christ­mas Event, held on De­cem­ber 12 2025, cost $160,135.

The State, how­ev­er, ap­pears to be be­hind on its pay­ments, which is a com­mon com­plaint ac­cord­ing to sev­er­al peo­ple in the in­dus­try who do busi­ness with the State.

Of the to­tal $214,410 spent on six events at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2025 and Jan­u­ary 2026, on­ly $22,700 has been paid, leav­ing an out­stand­ing bal­ance of $191,710.

Sev­er­al ser­vice providers en­gaged for the De­cem­ber 12 event re­main un­paid. Su­perb Cater­ers Lim­it­ed is owed $90,247.50 for buf­fet-style cater­ing and food ser­vices.

While the to­tal num­ber of staff list­ed for the event was 452, cater­ing was pro­vid­ed for 400 peo­ple. Ac­cord­ing to the Su­perb Cater­ers’ quo­ta­tion, buf­fet-style lunch and dessert cost $175 per per­son, while bev­er­ages, in­clud­ing as­sort­ed fresh juices, sor­rel, and gin­ger beer, were billed at $10 per per­son. The menu in­clud­ed fes­tive rice, scal­loped pota­toes, baked chick­en with sor­rel glaze, hon­ey-glazed ham, and roast­ed turkey. A to­tal of 400 pastelles were or­dered. Desserts al­lowed guests a choice of two per per­son from op­tions such as fruit cake, sponge cake, black for­est cake, or co­conut and choco­late ice cream.

So­tal Ad­ver­tis­ing Ltd is owed $56,250 for au­dio-vi­su­al set­up, in­clud­ing sound sys­tems, light­ing and stag­ing.

BK Hold­ings Lim­it­ed is owed $7,537.50 for the rental of two ex­ec­u­tive portable trail­er units and a gas-pow­ered gen­er­a­tor.

Stage Ef­fex Ltd still has to be paid $3,500 for teleprompter ser­vices and tech­ni­cal sup­port, while Route 1 Maxi-Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion is yet to re­ceive $2,600 for staff trans­porta­tion be­tween park­ing ar­eas and the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre.

Ac­cord­ing to the quo­ta­tions pro­vid­ed, for the End of Year Staff Ap­pre­ci­a­tion event, the low­est bids were se­lect­ed for cater­ing, trans­porta­tion and equip­ment rentals.

A sec­ond event, the Prime Min­is­ter Christ­mas Sup­per, held on De­cem­ber 18, 2025, re­port­ed­ly in­curred no cost to the State ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments. It lines up with the as­sur­ance the Prime Min­is­ter gave dur­ing her ad­dress.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told at­ten­dees, “Not one cent of Gov­ern­ment mon­ey is be­ing spent for this Christ­mas sup­per here this evening.”

She ex­plained that the event was fi­nanced us­ing pro­ceeds from a pre­vi­ous tick­et­ed Christ­mas din­ner held in Cou­va.

“You see that din­ner we had down in Cou­va, the big Christ­mas din­ner, and every­body who paid for your tick­et, that is your tick­et mon­ey. You’re get­ting a free din­ner here tonight,” she added then.

The din­ner she was re­fer­ring to was the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ An­nu­al Christ­mas Fundrais­er Din­ner, which was dubbed the “Win­ners Gala”

The Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre “sup­per” brought to­geth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ters, MPs, sen­a­tors, par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries, coun­cil­lors and al­der­men, con­stituen­cy chair­men, se­nior pub­lic ser­vants, staff of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, mem­bers of the wider gov­ern­ment ser­vice, labour union lead­ers, in­flu­encers and cam­paign sup­port­ers.

When re­ports emerged that Gov­ern­ment min­istries were be­ing forced to tone down or can­cel Christ­mas par­ties, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath said min­istries were act­ing to bal­ance staff ap­pre­ci­a­tion with fis­cal pru­dence.

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Na­tion­al En­er­gy and NGC can­celled events en­tire­ly.

Padarath, how­ev­er, host­ed a cel­e­bra­tion at the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, say­ing he was fo­cus­ing on em­ploy­ees and cost sav­ings and us­ing in-house artistes rather than lav­ish ex­ter­nal arrange­ments. As a min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Padarath al­so en­joyed the ma­jor Christ­mas par­ties or­gan­ised by the Prime Min­is­ter.

The FOIA re­quest al­so re­vealed de­tails of oth­er events held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

The Caribbean Launch of the Re­gion­al Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Re­port on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2025, cost $3,500 and was pro­vid­ed by Stage Ef­fex Ltd for teleprompter and tech­ni­cal sup­port.

Pay­ment for this event was made in full on Jan­u­ary 6, 2026. The In­au­gu­ra­tion of the Ar­ti­fi­cial Limb Fit­ment Camp on Oc­to­ber 3, 2025, cost $25,387.50, of which $19,200 was paid to Stage Ef­fex Ltd for teleprompter ser­vices, car­pet in­stal­la­tion, plants, chairs and snack box­es, leav­ing an out­stand­ing bal­ance of $6,187.50 owed to Smart Vi­bra­tions Ltd for PA sys­tems, mi­cro­phones and screens.

The Ca­roni Lease Dis­tri­b­u­tion Cer­e­mo­ny on Oc­to­ber 16, 2025 and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve on No­vem­ber 6, 2025, were record­ed as hav­ing no cost to the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ters Dar­rell Al­la­har and Bar­ry Padarath, both min­is­ters in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, as well as to sev­er­al of the ven­dors list­ed as hav­ing out­stand­ing bal­ances. The min­is­ters did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment. The on­ly par­ty to re­ply was the Route 1 Maxi-Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion, which con­firmed that it had paid its dri­vers out of its own funds and is still await­ing re­im­burse­ment from OPM.