TSTT launches probe into Cox

Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (TSTT) has launched a sweep­ing in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to for­mer act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Keino Cox, with al­le­ga­tions rang­ing from pro­cure­ment breach­es and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance fail­ures to con­flicts of in­ter­est, fraud, sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and re­tal­i­a­tion against per­sons who raised con­cerns.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion comes as Cox chal­lenges TSTT’s de­ci­sion not to re­new his ap­point­ment as act­ing CEO and its de­ci­sion to place him on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

The probe, com­mis­sioned by the TSTT board, will ex­am­ine Cox’s con­duct dur­ing his ap­prox­i­mate­ly year-long tenure at the state-owned telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny and will scru­ti­nise con­tracts and com­mer­cial arrange­ments in­volv­ing eight com­pa­nies.

They are An­gl Pay Ltd, NK In­no­vat­e­ch Ltd., Nasc Tech­nolo­gies Ltd, Rex Kar Ltd, Hum­ming­bird Hold­ings Ltd, Nim­ble Mo­bile Ltd, No­bis Glob­al Ltd and Wi­Pay.

Ac­cord­ing to the terms of ref­er­ence for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tors will de­ter­mine whether pro­cure­ment ex­er­cis­es in­volv­ing the com­pa­nies com­plied with ap­plic­a­ble pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, TSTT’s pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy and in­ter­nal ap­proval re­quire­ments.

They will al­so ex­am­ine whether any pro­cure­ment process was im­prop­er­ly in­flu­enced, cir­cum­vent­ed, ma­nip­u­lat­ed or di­rect­ed, and whether any sup­pli­er or con­trac­tor re­ceived pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

At the cen­tre of the probe is a pro­posed TT$49 mil­lion, three-year Dig­i­tal First Call Cen­tre So­lu­tion con­tract in­volv­ing Hum­ming­bird Hold­ings Ltd.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion will ex­am­ine the pro­cure­ment process, eval­u­a­tion and se­lec­tion of the sup­pli­er, the au­thor­i­ty for the award, com­pli­ance with manda­to­ry ten­der re­quire­ments and the ex­tent of the board’s knowl­edge and ap­proval.

The pro­posed Hum­ming­bird arrange­ment was re­cent­ly shelved amid con­cerns that it had been ad­vanced and ap­proved with­out be­ing sub­mit­ted to the TSTT board.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tors will al­so ex­am­ine the re­la­tion­ships and con­nec­tions in­volv­ing Wi­Pay, Nim­ble Mo­bile Ltd. and No­bis Glob­al Ltd., in­clud­ing whether any per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial in­ter­ests were dis­closed and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly man­aged.

The board is al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether Cox breached fidu­cia­ry, statu­to­ry and oth­er du­ties owed to TSTT.

Among the ques­tions to be ex­am­ined is whether he failed to act hon­est­ly and in the best in­ter­ests of the com­pa­ny, im­prop­er­ly ex­er­cised the pow­ers en­trust­ed to him or failed to ex­er­cise the care, dili­gence and judg­ment ex­pect­ed of a CEO.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion will fur­ther ex­am­ine whether Cox failed to re­spect the board’s su­per­vi­so­ry au­thor­i­ty, with­held or de­layed ma­te­r­i­al in­for­ma­tion or pro­gressed sig­nif­i­cant trans­ac­tions with­out the board’s knowl­edge, au­thor­i­ty or ap­proval.

Al­le­ga­tions of fraud, dis­hon­esty, mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and con­ceal­ment are al­so be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, in­clud­ing whether records were cre­at­ed, al­tered or pre­sent­ed in cir­cum­stances re­quir­ing fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion.

The probe ex­tends in­to pos­si­ble breach­es of TSTT’s An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Pol­i­cy and con­flicts of in­ter­est aris­ing from per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ships con­nect­ed to TSTT trans­ac­tions.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so in­cludes al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in­volv­ing more than one con­sul­tant en­gaged by or pro­vid­ing ser­vices to TSTT dur­ing Cox’s tenure.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors will ex­am­ine the na­ture and cir­cum­stances of the al­leged con­duct, whether it breached TSTT’s Sex­u­al Ha­rass­ment Pol­i­cy and whether Cox al­leged­ly used or abused his po­si­tion or au­thor­i­ty in con­nec­tion with the con­duct.

Al­le­ga­tions of vic­tim­i­sa­tion and re­tal­i­a­tion will al­so be ex­am­ined, in­clud­ing whether em­ploy­ees, of­fi­cers, con­sul­tants or oth­ers were sub­ject­ed to threats, pres­sure, in­tim­i­da­tion or ad­verse treat­ment af­ter rais­ing con­cerns, ques­tion­ing trans­ac­tions or seek­ing board over­sight.

The board is al­so ex­am­in­ing whether TSTT’s hu­man re­sources poli­cies were prop­er­ly fol­lowed in dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that em­ploy­ees were im­prop­er­ly pro­tect­ed from dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

The terms of ref­er­ence make clear that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not lim­it­ed to the mat­ters cur­rent­ly iden­ti­fied. In­ves­ti­ga­tors have been au­tho­rised to fol­low the ev­i­dence in­to oth­er con­tracts, trans­ac­tions, re­la­tion­ships, per­sons or en­ti­ties that may re­quire ex­am­i­na­tion.

Cox is re­quired to co­op­er­ate with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and may be re­quired to at­tend in­ter­views, an­swer ques­tions, pro­vide writ­ten ex­pla­na­tions and pro­duce doc­u­ments and records.

He has al­so been in­struct­ed to pre­serve po­ten­tial­ly rel­e­vant emails, What­sApp mes­sages, text mes­sages, cor­re­spon­dence, notes, elec­tron­ic files and oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tions re­lat­ing to TSTT busi­ness, in­clud­ing in­for­ma­tion stored on per­son­al de­vices or ac­counts.

TSTT has stressed that the mat­ters are al­le­ga­tions re­quir­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and that no fi­nal find­ings have been made against Cox.

The com­pa­ny has said Cox will have a rea­son­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions and any ma­te­r­i­al on which an ad­verse find­ing may be con­tem­plat­ed be­fore fi­nal con­clu­sions are reached.

How­ev­er, TSTT has re­served the right to re­fer ev­i­dence of fraud, cor­rup­tion or oth­er crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing to law en­force­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al au­thor­i­ties.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion comes against the back­drop of an es­ca­lat­ing le­gal dis­pute be­tween Cox and TSTT.

Cox’s act­ing CEO con­tract end­ed on Ju­ly 31 af­ter the board re­viewed his per­for­mance. He was re­placed by Reza Ho­sein.

Cox is chal­leng­ing the non-re­new­al of his ap­point­ment and his place­ment on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 8, pre­pared by at­tor­ney Kristy Mo­han on the in­struc­tions of Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.

The let­ter was sent to at­tor­ney Saman­tha Singh-Poona, who is act­ing for TSTT.

Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that Cox was “forced out” and de­scribed his client’s case against TSTT as “unan­swer­able”.

Mo­han’s Sep­tem­ber 8 let­ter was her sec­ond cor­re­spon­dence to TSTT. In her first let­ter, dat­ed Au­gust 26, she sought an ex­pla­na­tion for the de­ci­sions con­cern­ing Cox.

TSTT re­spond­ed on Sep­tem­ber 2 re­quest­ing ad­di­tion­al time.

Mo­han ob­ject­ed to the re­quest for a fur­ther 14 days, ar­gu­ing that it was ex­ces­sive and un­jus­ti­fied giv­en that TSTT should al­ready have been able to iden­ti­fy the ba­sis for de­ci­sions made by its own board.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that TSTT re­spond­ed to Mo­han’s lat­est let­ter on Thurs­day. The de­tails of that re­sponse were not im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able.

Mo­han’s let­ter al­so raised con­cerns about cor­po­rate gov­er­nance at TSTT and the con­duct of the com­pa­ny’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, Cox had raised con­cerns about the cor­po­rate sec­re­tary’s con­duct, in­clud­ing an al­leged fail­ure to prop­er­ly de­clare sec­ondary em­ploy­ment at the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go in a Code of Ethics De­c­la­ra­tion.

The let­ter al­so re­ferred to a po­ten­tial con­flict of in­ter­est which, it said, had been con­firmed by ex­ter­nal Se­nior Coun­sel.

Oth­er con­cerns al­leged­ly raised by Cox in­clud­ed de­lays in TSTT’s ap­pli­ca­tion for a Mon­ey Lender’s Li­cence, which he re­port­ed­ly be­lieved re­sult­ed in com­peti­tor Dig­i­cel gain­ing an ad­van­tage in launch­ing a com­pet­ing prod­uct, as well as the hir­ing of staff al­leged­ly con­trary to TSTT pro­ce­dures or with­out CEO ap­proval.

Ques­tions have al­so been raised about the hir­ing of a young at­tor­ney at TSTT with­out the po­si­tion be­ing pub­licly ad­ver­tised, with al­le­ga­tions that the ap­point­ment was made as a favour to a UNC politi­cian.

Cox de­clined to ad­dress those ques­tions when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, say­ing the mat­ter was now in the hands of his le­gal team, led by Ma­haraj and Mo­han.

Cox’s de­par­ture fol­lowed scruti­ny of a three-day ex­ec­u­tive re­treat in To­ba­go in­volv­ing him and ten oth­er TSTT ex­ec­u­tives in Jan­u­ary.

TSTT was in­voiced $436,081.78 for the Jan­u­ary 16–18, 2026 re­treat. The com­pa­ny sub­se­quent­ly said the in­voice was over­stat­ed by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 per cent and de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to hold the re­treat.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said af­ter Cox’s de­par­ture that TSTT chair­man Kern Dass had ad­vised him that the board had met and, af­ter “care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and re­view”, de­cid­ed to ap­point Ho­sein to lead the com­pa­ny.

Padarath al­so said the board had shared with him the re­sults of an ap­praisal of Cox’s per­for­mance.

He de­nied that Cox had been es­cort­ed from TSTT’s premis­es by se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

Cox’s de­par­ture came days af­ter TSTT an­nounced a $214 mil­lion af­ter-tax prof­it on Ju­ly 26—the com­pa­ny’s largest record­ed prof­it in 17 years.

Ef­forts to ob­tain a re­sponse from Padarath on the lat­est de­vel­op­ments were un­suc­cess­ful.