TSTT billed $.5M for 11 execs on 3-day Tobago retreat

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

State-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) has been in­voiced al­most half a mil­lion dol­lars for a three-day re­treat in To­ba­go for act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive Keino Cox and 10 of its ex­ec­u­tives.

The all-in­clu­sive re­treat, which was held from Jan­u­ary 16 to 18 this year in To­ba­go, is set to cost the com­pa­ny $436,081.78, at a time when the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider re­port­ed a loss of $82.2 mil­lion in its fi­nan­cial state­ment for the year end­ed March 31, 2025.

The cost of the re­treat was dis­cov­ered in a bun­dle of in­voic­es ob­tained by the Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk.

Sev­er­al video clips of the re­treat were al­so pro­vid­ed, which showed the ex­ec­u­tives, some ca­su­al­ly dressed and oth­ers in beach­wear, par­tak­ing in games, tak­ing group pho­tographs, board­ing a tour boat, wear­ing green and white gar­lands, light­ing a bon­fire and en­gag­ing with each oth­er un­der two tents on the se­clud­ed, pris­tine beach of No Man’s Land in Bon Ac­cord, which is on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by boat.

Ex­ec­u­tive re­treats are com­mon and are of­ten re­gard­ed as team-build­ing ex­er­cis­es which take place out­side of the of­fice, al­low­ing team mem­bers and lead­er­ship to en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ties to strength­en their com­mu­ni­ca­tion, rec­on­cile dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives to­ward a com­mon goal and deep­en trust, which would ul­ti­mate­ly cre­ate co­he­sion in the team. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment has tak­en a hard­line ap­proach to ex­ces­sive and un­nec­es­sary spend­ing, cut­ting Christ­mas par­ties for staff and sev­er­al spon­sor­ships from State com­pa­nies.

A three-page in­voice gave a de­tailed break­down of the over­all cost of the re­treat.

The in­voice, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 20, 2026, showed TSTT was billed for brand­ed to­kens — $38,704, event pro­duc­tion — $203,265, ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion — $72,167, and su­per­vi­sion/co­or­di­na­tion — $73,492.25.

These four ar­eas of the re­treat cost $387,628.25.

The bill grew to $436,081.78 when 12.5 per cent Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) was added to the sub-to­tal of $387,628.25.

The ser­vices of­fered to TSTT were ex­pe­ri­ences and tours, re­treat co­or­di­na­tion, lo­gis­tics and on-call ser­vice, in­fra­struc­ture and set-up, brand­ing, labour and trans­porta­tion.

An in­voice from To­ba­go-based Stage So­lu­tions Ltd, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 17, 2026, sent to the ad­ver­tis­ing agency list­ed 32 items and ser­vices for the re­treat for $180,680.

When VAT was added to the $180,680, the fi­nal fig­ure in­creased to $203,265.

The ex­ten­sive list fo­cused on the quan­ti­ty, rates and amount for the items and ser­vices pro­vid­ed.

It showed that four boat ser­vices to­talling $57,500 were pro­vid­ed.

One was a “bar ser­vice on tour boat and No Man’s Land” for $15,000, while the sec­ond was a “cater­ing ser­vice on tour boat and No Man’s Land”, cost­ing $15,000.

For a sin­gle-boat char­ter on Jan­u­ary 16 and 17, the fee was $12,500.

A reef boat char­ter was priced at $15,000.

It al­so list­ed a $6,500 is­land tour with a tour guide and re­fresh­ments.

In­clud­ed in the list were 12 good­ie bags — $9,000, pan­nists, drum­mers and dancers — $10,500, recre­ation­al games — $2,500, a $3,600 bon­fire, golf­ing at Mag­dale­na Grand pay­ment and fa­cil­i­ta­tion — $4,800, re­treat co­or­di­na­tion/lo­gis­tics and on-call ser­vice — $15,000, am­bi­ent light­ing/boat and land — $3,600, trans­porta­tion Jan­u­ary 16–18 — $5,000, ex­ec­u­tive concierge ser­vices Jan­u­ary 16–18 — $15,000, a 20-foot bmo­bile arch brand­ing on No Man’s Land — $5,000, grass turf — $2,000, a bmo­bile back­drop — $3,500, Sea­horse Inn din­ner reser­va­tions and pay­ment fa­cil­i­ta­tion — $12,500, brand­ing and in­stal­la­tion Com­fort Inn/No Man’s Land Jan­u­ary 16–18 — $4,500, pre and post-clean­ing of No Man’s Land — $3,000, and labour Jan­u­ary 16–18 — $7,500.

The rental of two gen­er­a­tors, five ot­tomans (four large and one white pre­mi­um), eight beach chairs, two tents, four ta­bles and four table­cloths for $8,480 was al­so on the list.

Eight in­sect-re­pel­lent torch­es, cost­ing $1,200, were al­so in­clud­ed.

An­oth­er in­voice from Com­fort Inn and Suites, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 14, showed that TSTT was billed $65,666.57 for ac­com­mo­da­tion, a meet­ing room, food and bev­er­age, and a late check-out fee for its ex­ec­u­tives dur­ing their stay.

In the in­voice, the ho­tel used Cox’s name, cell phone con­tact and email ad­dress as “con­tact de­tails”.

It showed that a “King Suite Room” (sin­gle oc­cu­pan­cy) was rent­ed for Cox, with a king-sized bed at $1,961.26 per night.

For the three nights Cox was a guest at the ho­tel at Or­ange Hill Road, Scar­bor­ough, a fee of $5,883.78 was charged.

The ho­tel added a ten per cent ser­vice charge ($588.38), 12.5 per cent VAT ($73.55) and ten per cent ac­com­mo­da­tion tax ($588.38) to the $5,883.78, bring­ing the fi­nal cost of Cox’s ac­com­mo­da­tion to $7,134.09.

Of the ten oth­er ex­ec­u­tives, six were placed in King Suite Rooms (sin­gle oc­cu­pan­cy) with king-sized beds for two nights at $23,535.12.

This fig­ure in­creased to $28,536.33 with tax­es and ser­vice charges.

The re­main­ing four ex­ec­u­tives were placed in Stan­dard King Rooms (sin­gle oc­cu­pan­cy) with king beds (with break­fast) for two nights, cost­ing $1,368.25 per room.

The cost of those rooms in­creased to $13,272.03 when tax­es and ser­vice charges were added.

TSTT was al­so charged a $4,534.75 late check-out fee on Jan­u­ary 18 for the 11 rooms rent­ed.

The cost of a late check-out for each room was $340 plus tax­es and a ser­vice charge.

The ho­tel’s to­tal ac­com­mo­da­tion bill for the ex­ec­u­tives was put at $53,477.19.

An ad­di­tion­al $6,000 fee was al­so charged for a board­room-style meet­ing room at the ho­tel to ac­com­mo­date the 11 ex­ec­u­tives for two days.

When the ho­tel in­clud­ed VAT and ser­vice charge for the board­room’s rental, the fi­nal tab was $7,425.

Un­der food and bev­er­age, the ho­tel pro­vid­ed the ex­ec­u­tives with an all-day bev­er­age sta­tion and snack plates for its two-day board meet­ing, cost­ing $4,764.38, in­clu­sive of tax­es and ser­vice charge.

The bev­er­ages were an as­sort­ment of teas, cof­fee, bot­tled wa­ter and two juices.

A third in­voice showed Pret­ty Pineap­ple Pro­duc­tions billed the ad­ver­tis­ing com­pa­ny on Jan­u­ary 15 un­der the sub­ject “Bmo­bile To­kens for Ex­ec­u­tive Re­treat”.

The to­kens, priced at $38,704, had no de­tails on the doc­u­ment ex­cept for the words “to­ken, pack­ag­ing, co­or­di­na­tion, etc.” Up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion, the ad­ver­tis­ing agency had not been paid by TSTT.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk reached out to Cox via What­sApp re­gard­ing the in­voic­es, but he said he was in tran­sit yes­ter­day and re­ferred us to Janelle David, TSTT’s Me­dia and Stake­hold­er Re­la­tions, for a com­ment.

In a What­sApp mes­sage, David stat­ed, “As not­ed, the fig­ure ref­er­enced is in­ac­cu­rate and sig­nif­i­cant­ly over­stat­ed. We re­main fo­cused on en­sur­ing that any re­port­ing about TSTT is ac­cu­rate and ver­i­fied, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en that we were not able to re­view the doc­u­ments you ref­er­enced.”

Items and de­scrip­tion Quan­ti­ty Rate Amount

Good­ie bags 12 $750 $9,000

Pan­nist wel­come ser­e­nade 1 $3,500 $3,500

Folk dancers wel­come ser­e­nade 1 $3,500 $3,500

Drum­mers wel­come ser­e­nade 1 $3,500 $3,500

Sin­gle boat char­ter 16 & 17 1 $12,500 $12,500

Reef boat char­ter 1 $15,000 $15,000

15x15 clear top mar­quee tent 1 $800 $800

in­clu­sive of side walls

20x20 clear top mar­quee tent 1 $1,200 $1,200

in­clu­sive of side walls

White pre­mi­um ot­toman 4 $120 $480

Large ot­toman 1 $300 $300

Beach chairs 8 $150 $1,200

Am­bi­ent light­ing/ boat & land 1 $3,600 $3,600

Bar ser­vice on tour boat and 1 $15,000 $15,000

No Man’s Land

Cater­ing ser­vice on tour boat and 1 $15,000 $15,000

No Man’s Land

Bon­fire 1 $3,600 $3,600

Gen­er­a­tors 2 $2,000 $4,000

In­sect re­pel­lent torch­es 8 $150 $1,200

Grass turf 1 $2,000 $2,000

Recre­ation­al games 1 $2,500 $2,500

Ex­ec­u­tive concierge ser­vices

Jan­u­ary 16 - 18 1 $2,500 $2,500

Pre and post clean­ing and 1 $3,000 $3,000

San­i­ta­tion No Man’s Land

Re­treat co­or­di­na­tion/lo­gis­tics 1 $15,000 $15,000

and on-call ser­vice

20 ft bmo­bile arch brand­ing 1 $5,000 $5,000

on No Man’s Land

bmo­bile back­drop 1 $3,500 $3,500

6ft ta­bles 4 $50 $200

Ta­ble cloth 4 $75 $300

Brand­ing and in­stal­la­tion Com­fort In/ 1 $4,500 $4,500

No Man’s Land Jan­u­ary 16 - 18

Sea­horse Inn din­ner reser­va­tions 1 $12,500 $12,500

and pay­ment fa­cil­i­ta­tion

Golf­ing at Mag­dale­na Grand pay­ment 1 $4,800 $4,800

and fa­cil­i­ta­tion

Is­land tour/tour guides and 1 $6,500 $6,500

re­fresh­ments

Trans­porta­tion Jan­u­ary 16 - 18 1 $5,000 $5,000

Labour Jan­u­ary 16 - 18 1 $7,500 $7,500

Sub to­tal $180,680.00

VAT (12.5%) $22,585.00

To­tal $203,265.00

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU), Joanne Ogeer, said con­cerns are now be­ing raised re­gard­ing what ap­peared to be a lav­ish ex­ec­u­tive re­treat.

The union leader said the re­treat came at a time when work­ers were be­ing told that fi­nan­cial con­straints pre­vent fair set­tle­ments in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ogeer ques­tioned whether the board had ap­proved the re­treat’s bud­get.

“His­tor­i­cal­ly, TSTT has not been known for host­ing such re­treats for its ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment and board of di­rec­tors. Yet the union has been re­li­ably in­formed, and sup­port­ed by video record­ings and pho­to­graph­ic ev­i­dence of an elab­o­rate gath­er­ing in­volv­ing ex­ec­u­tives and board mem­bers.”

She de­scribed the re­treat as an “ex­trav­a­gant cel­e­bra­tion” and called for “full dis­clo­sure on the to­tal ex­pen­di­ture as­so­ci­at­ed with the re­treat”.

Ogeer said aus­ter­i­ty ap­pears to ap­ply on­ly to bar­gain­ing unit em­ploy­ees.

“What pro­cure­ment poli­cies gov­erned the or­gan­i­sa­tion of this re­treat?”

She al­so queried whether op­er­a­tional im­prove­ments and mea­sur­able val­ue had been iden­ti­fied fol­low­ing the re­treat.

“The work­force and pub­lic de­serve an­swers.”

In the last few months, Ogeer claimed bmo­bile has been on a spon­sor­ship dri­ve.

“From fete spon­sor­ship to part­ner­ship with high-pro­file per­son­al­i­ties, the com­pa­ny seems ea­ger to en­gage in high-vis­i­bil­i­ty mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives. Let it be clear, the union does not op­pose ef­fec­tive mar­ket­ing. In fact, we en­cour­age strate­gic part­ner­ships that strength­en the brand and gen­er­ate rev­enue.”

Such ini­tia­tives must be phased, mea­sured and sup­port­ed by demon­strat­ed re­sults that jus­ti­fy in­vest­ments, Ogeer point­ed out.

The union, she said, has con­sis­tent­ly raised alarms about wan­ton wastage at TSTT while work­ers were sent home due to cost-cut­ting mea­sures.

“While em­ploy­ees are re­peat­ed­ly told the com­pa­ny faces cost lim­i­ta­tions, the pub­lic con­tin­ues to wit­ness what ap­pears to be a spend­ing spree.”

In­sist­ing that the union would pro­tect the in­ter­ests of TSTT work­ers, Ogeer said she was pre­pared to ex­pose “those square pegs placed in round holes... in­di­vid­u­als who ap­pear to be part of what work­ers in­creas­ing­ly view as a feed­ing trough at TSTT.”

2025 2024

Con­tract ser­vices $125.9M $92.3M

Rentals $60.1M $56.3M

Ad­ver­tis­ing $45M $38.4M

Di­rec­tors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion $996,000 $1.4M

Train­ing and for­eign trav­el $2.9m $2.2m

Sup­plies and re­lat­ed ex­pens­es $7.1m $3.5m

Jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vice $4.5m $5m

2025 2024

Fleet costs $2.4m $3m

Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle rentals $355,000 $3.2m

Main­te­nance hard­ware, soft­ware $73m $66.8m

and of­fice equip­ment

Main­te­nance of premis­es $14m $12.7m

Main­te­nance of plant $78.1m $109m