Tag: trinidad and tobago

Letter to the Editor – The HDC’s program paradox

22nd August 2025

The Editor,

The State’s provision of affordable housing to low and middle-income applicants has been delivered primarily by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and, to a lesser extent, the Land Settlement Agency (LSA).

The current Housing Policy—”Showing Trinidad & Tobago a New Way Home“—was established in 2002 with the ambitious target of producing 100,000 new homes within a decade. Before the HDC was established in 2005, that role was fulfilled by the National Housing Authority (NHA), which was established in 1962. Despite allocations of public money and private sector borrowings exceeding $20 billion since 2002, the NHA/HDC completed less than 25,000 new homes.

T&T Housing PolicyDownload

Beyond the gross totals and their serious implications lies a more insidious issue: the actual effectiveness of this large-scale public housing program when we consider the human element. The HDC Act stipulates that its purpose as a statutory agency is to facilitate affordable housing for low and middle-income applicants. Yet over 90% of applicants on the HDC waiting list cannot qualify for a mortgage because they are simply too poor, while only 21% of new HDC homes are available for rent. Given the amounts of public money invested in this program and the desperate housing needs of our poorest citizens, this represents a tremendous misallocation of scarce resources.

The HDC’s low output compared to original targets, combined with its failure to serve the majority of applicants for affordable housing, constitutes a serious indictment of its performance.

Since 2003, NHA/HDC has not had audited Financial Statements, so there are substantial financial accountability issues in addition to those noted earlier. HDC stated that the financial statements for 2003 to 2009 were audited, but those financial statements were accompanied by Independent Auditors Reports, issued by KPMG Chartered Accountants, every one of which was subject to a Disclaimer of Opinion. The Disclaimer of Opinion is many times worse than a mere qualified audit since it means that the auditor has so little confidence in the records that it is impossible to form a responsible professional opinion.

During the recently concluded election campaign, I was astonished by Jearlean John’s promise to deliver 500 new homes per week and “…we are looking to build at least 10,000 houses per year…” if the UNC were elected. Ms. John served as HDC’s Managing Director from November 2009 to March 2016 and provided serious assistance to my public housing research during that period. There is no doubt that she is well-informed on these matters.

The Housing Ministry now has a Minister and two Ministers of State—a considerable commitment of political capital to this important public policy area.

We must avoid the errors of the past if we are to do better. If the newly elected UNC Administration wishes to succeed where others have failed, it must act fundamentally differently from the previous PNM government.

Afra Raymond
afraraymond.net

Letter to the Editor – Repeal all Exclusions/Exemptions to the Public Procurement & Disposal of Public Property Act NOW

15th August 2025

The Editor,

Since the UNC’s election victory on 28 April 2025, we have had several official statements on allegedly excessive legal fees paid by the State during the previous PNM administration from 2015 to 2025.

Some details of those legal fees paid have now been published, which is good, since transparency on the expenditure of Public Money is essential if we are to have an informed engagement with these issues.

The ongoing ‘CEPEP case’ is also a serious concern, as the parties appear to be battling over the existence and content of various Cabinet Notes and Board Resolutions, not to mention who said what to who and WhatsApp messages and so on. At issue is the legitimacy/legality of the April 2025 renewal/award of various CEPEP contracts said to total $1.4 Billion in Public Money. Having read those articles, I am staggered that the reported defence of the ex-CEPEP Chiefs does not seem to be citing their compliance with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Act (The Act). What is more, the plaintiffs, as reported in the press, also seems to be silent on such compliance, which is what is required by The Act since April 2023. As interesting as those reported details are, the decisive point in this matter is CEPEP’s compliance with the Act in awarding those contracts.

In the ‘bad-old-days’ of the previous PNM administration we saw the then-AG, Faris Al Rawi, making a meal of the serious allegations of massive legal fees fraud against former PP AG Anand Ramlogan SC and newly-appointed NGC Chairman, Gerald Ramdeen – the sum allegedly mis-appropriated was in the $1.0 Billion region. Yet, at the very same time, the then-Finance Minister, Colm Imbert, was exempting expenditure on legal fees from the oversight of the Office of Procurement Regulation (OPR). Incredible, but that is what really happened in this country.

I am referring to the fact that on Friday 4 December 2020 our Parliament passed the third set of amendments to the Act. Those exemptions were a serious blow to the long-term campaign for proper control over transactions in Public Money and are extremely detrimental to the public interest.

The removal of legal, accounting/auditing, medical fees, and financial services, as well as Government to Government Agreements and ‘such other services as the Minister may, by Order, determine’ from OPR oversight was risible when one considers the strong and repeated statements as to concerns over the alleged legal fees and other scandals. The over-stated concerns as to speed and efficiency could have been addressed by approval limits for ‘Procuring Entities’ and an obligation to make quarterly reports to the OPR. At that time, it was remarkable that the Opposition UNC, as it then was, seemed unable (or was it merely unwilling?) to make those points or advance any counterproposals.

We now have a freshly elected government, with its AG making loud claims about excessive legal fees paid by the previous PNM administration, with a troubling silence on the UNC position on those damaging 2020 exemptions from the Act. I am not at all inspired by the disclosure of this or that legal fee, since what we need is a clear position from the UNC on the repeal of those damaging exemptions from the Act. Those detrimental exemptions must now be repealed so that the public interest could be well-served by comprehensive and independent oversight by the OPR, as intended when the People’s Partnership (PP), of which the current ruling UNC was the leading element, passed the parent legislation – Act No 1 of 2015.

We must avoid the errors of the past if we are to do better. If the newly-elected UNC govt wishes to do better, it must act differently from the previous PNM govt. It would be a serious blow to our Republic if the OPR were to become yet another toothless/ineffective oversight body, like the Integrity Commission or the Auditor General.

Afra Raymond
afraraymond.net

Letter to the Editor on proposed restart of Tobago Sandals talks

Friday 4th April 2025

To the Editor,

Following Dr. Rowley’s statement on 15 March 2025, we now know from our newly-selected Prime Minister, Stuart Young SC, that Adam Stewart, Executive Chairman of Sandals, is scheduled to visit Tobago on Monday 7th April 2025 to resume discussions on the Tobago Sandals project.

According to PM Young, “We need to learn from the mistakes of the past, and not allow a few misguided naysayers to stop the potential development of the economy of Tobago. This is for Tobago.”

In response to Dr Rowley, THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine remarked, ‘‘…Tobagonians rejected the Sandals project because it was undemocratic and did not make proper economic sense, that MoU that was signed by the current MP for Tobago West (Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis) and it did not meet the environmental best practices or standards that we wanted…” (The emphasis is mine, as I entirely agree with those comments.)

Continue reading “Letter to the Editor on proposed restart of Tobago Sandals talks” →

JAMP Citizen Perspectives: Fighting Corruption via Parliament webinar: 1 April 2025

JAMP Citizen Perspectives: Fighting Corruption via Parliament webinar: 1 April 2025

JAMP (Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal) presented the findings of its citizen survey on parliamentary accountability in the fight against corruption. Afra Raymond was invited to be a guest speaker at this webinar hosted by Jeanette Calder, Executive Director, JAMP, to give a Trinidad and Tobago perspective on accountability and transparency. Video courtesy JAMP

  • Programme Length: 00:32:09
  • Programme Date: 1 April 2025

No tax holiday for Sandals – Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

The T&T Guardian newspaper interviewed Afra Raymond on the issue of the renewed engagement of the Sandals hotel group to develop a resort in Tobago. The following article, written by Andrea Perez-Sobers and published on Friday, April 4, 2025, is presented below. Click here to read the complete article on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian website.

If the State is to revisit and fund the Sandals mega-project in Tobago, the hotel must pay proper rates of tax and rates of pay to its staff.

There ought to be no tax holidays or concessions if the entire complex is to be funded by public money and on publicly owned land.

That’s according to former head of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) Afra Raymond, responding to former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley’s statements on March 15 that he has personally reached out to the Sandals’ owner with a plea to take another look at the island.

“I didn’t give up after all that (first failed attempt). Recently, I spoke to the leadership at Sandals, and I asked them to come look at this again, and if I was the problem, I wouldn’t be there moving forward,” Rowley said, at the commissioning of Tobago’s new terminal of the ANR Robinson International Airport..

Continue reading “No tax holiday for Sandals – Trinidad and Tobago Guardian” →

PROPERTY MATTERS – the role of the Valuation Roll

The implementation of the controversial Property Tax is now underway in Trinidad and Tobago, marked by a series of official announcements and the issuance of revised Notices of Valuation to an estimated 400,000 residential taxpayers. While these revisions are necessary, there is a critical flaw in the system that must be addressed: the restricted access to the Valuation Roll database. This column explores the implications of this restricted access, argues for the necessity of transparency, and identifies who stands to gain from maintaining the status quo.

The new Property Tax system in T&T aims to deliver equitable taxes through a crowd-sourcing approach, which promises transparency and low operational costs. Property owners were asked to submit detailed returns – about 60,000 of which were sent – which were then analyzed by the Valuation Division of the Finance Ministry. Selected properties were inspected and measured, leading to provisional tax assessments. Taxpayers have the right to object to these assessments, which would be refined through this iterative process of public feedback, ensuring fairness and accuracy.

Continue reading “PROPERTY MATTERS – the role of the Valuation Roll” →

Keynote address to Regional Compliance Consultants Breakfast Seminar

Afra Raymond’s keynote speech at the 11th Anniversary Breakfast Seminar for Regional Compliance Consultants (RCC) held at Courtyard Marriott in Port of Spain on Wednesday, 22 May 2024. He spoke on the theme “The Importance and Ethics of the Compliance Profession”. The master of ceremonies was Kingsley Lewis of RCC.

  • Programme Date: 22 May 2024
  • Programme Length: 00:20:54
Courtesy RCC

A worthy NGO?

“We are not Serious…
Very few Conscious…
So, I cannot agree with mih own Chorus!”

from the first verse of ‘Dis Place nice’ by Brother Valentino

“Your silence will not protect you.”

Caribbean Philosopher Audre Lorde, on the false beliefs and toxic consequences earned from calculated or cowardly silences

“Last call to all corporates. Support this worthy NGO if you can,” was the rallying note from an erstwhile Colleague who had served on the Board of the T&T Transparency Institute (TTTI). This was an appeal to boost ticket sales for the TTTI’s fundraising dinner carded for 22 May 2024, but it ultimately provoked me into making these pointed observations, so here goes.

For a some years now, it has become increasingly clear that TTTI had drifted from its purpose with less and less work, of lower and lower quality, emerging from that NGO of which I am an Ordinary Member. One can scarcely believe that this was once a vibrant, outspoken and well-informed NGO with dedicated leaders such as Victor Hart, Richard Joseph, Deryck Murray and Annette des Iles, not that we can ever forget the recently departed Reginald Dumas and Boyd Reid.

Continue reading “A worthy NGO?” →

Raymond & Pierre’s 50th Anniversary Land & Property mini-conference

Afra Raymond, Managing Director of property advisory company, Raymond & Pierre, speaks at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration, a mini-Conference on Land and Property in Trinidad and Tobago, hosted at the Centre of Excellence on Tuesday 13th December 2022. His first topic there was ‘Public Procurement law through the lens of professional responsibility‘. His second topic there was ‘Land & Housing Policy in post-Independence Trinidad and Tobago‘ that sees to the needs of poor people.

  • Programme Date: 13 December 2022
  • Programme Length: 00:16:02 and 00:12:38
Playlist contains 2 videos. Select in top right corner.

Letter to the Editor – $55m fiasco: bring in the Fraud Squad

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) offices on Park Street, Port of Spain. The refurbished building was handed over to the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs in July 2020 by Nidco, and has remained unoccupied since. —Photo: ROBERT TAYLOR. Courtesy Trinidad Express

The Editor,

The government has now decided to end the lease of RBC’s former headquarters at Park St, claiming that a reported $55M of Public Money had been spent on that property, which the DPP never occupied as intended.

Your edition of Sunday, 22 October 2023, covered those events with Anna Ramdass’ two-page chronology entitled “A monument of waste“, your editorial “Seems we like it so!” and Noble Phillips’ provocative column “Are we all becoming Mahal?“.

Sad to say, but all of this plays to a muddled and distressing narrative of careless, poorly-managed spending of scarce Public Money, with a majority of the blame intended to settle on the DPP.  The chronicle being one of a government anxious to provide proper offices for a DPP who is careless and capricious, with the government eventually making the tough choice to vacate the office it had so scrupulously procured for the DPP.

Continue reading “Letter to the Editor – $55m fiasco: bring in the Fraud Squad” →