The Editor,

According to official records, Senator Paula Gopee-Scoon was appointed Minister of Trade & Industry on September 11, 2015, after the current PNM administration took office.

‘Major upgrades to Hilton to start this year‘ was the headline of the extensive article in the Express Business of 14 June 2023 in which Minister Gopee-Scoon was reported to have stated – “… Gopee-Scoon indicated that the hotel was built in 1962 and has not been renovated in over 20 years…”.   The Minister’s assertion that Trinidad Hilton had not been renovated in over 20 years is astonishing and entirely untrue. As I reported in this space, previously drawn from the Parliament’s 2016 JSC Report into the operations of eTeck: 

…In 2016, the Parliament’s JSC examined the operations of e TecK with particular reference to its accounts and finances. Its Report was published in September 2016 and makes intriguing reading, given the stakes here. According to the President of e Teck, Robert Salandy, in his testimony to the Joint Select Committee on 6 April 2016, the project costs have escalated from an original estimate of $484M to a current figure of $634M. A total of $508M had been spent and it was reported that “…Salandy could not give a time-frame in which the renovations at the Hilton hotel would be completed…”

Property Matters – Trinidad Hilton Improvements

Of course the public cannot tell if this plainly untrue statement emerged as a result of poor-record-keeping, a collapse of Institutional Memory, a genuine error/oversight within the Minister’s office or some other misfortune, but the Ministry of Trade & Industry needs to rectify the record, in the public interest. 

Thank you.

Afra Raymond,
former JCC President
Afraraymond.net