First Published: 2nd June 2025
Where The Billions Went Under Rowley And The PNM
 

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The Honorable PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar                                                                Former PM Rowley

TTJF has compiled a list of state-controlled boards that are populated by the 1%, their friends and associates. For the past few decades, these State controlled organisations have always awarded lucrative contracts to the same people for goods and services most of them by illegal, corrupt and fraudulent means. Indeed, this was the reason the procurement legislation was passed by the first Honorable Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration. Not surprisingly the provisions of this law were gutted by the PNM Rowley administration soon after, and ensured several loopholes were created for the elites to continue ripping off the country. 

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Prior to Dr Rowley’s ascension to the office of PM, we know that he was financed, wined and dined by the 1% elites through his own admission. He openly bragged about his connections with the elites and treated it as a feather in his cap even though he did not mention what he got out of ‘the deal’ that sold out the country. Throughout his tenure, the very same beneficiaries that existed under previous PNM administrations whereby they received illegal contracts in exchange for kickbacks. 

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Dr Rowley went on to state publicly that the Government must make the elites richer and they will pass the wealth onto the poorer classes. [State companies and minister of finance were obviously instructed to pass the contracts to his 1% clique.] This line of reasoning was completely abandoned by academics and modern countries for the past 35 years. Based on these admissions Dr Rowley had successfully formalized the relationship between the TT Government and the 1%, even though it was something that went unspoken for decades.

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This saw the appointment of the crème de la crème to top positions in the government as was recently done by Donald Trump with the appointment of Elon Musk. For example, there is Robert Bermudez who was made chancellor at UWI. He is well known for his board involvement at Neal and Massy, RBC Bank as well as his own Bermudez Baking Group of Companies. This level of interlocking directorships is astounding, frightening and illegal in many countries. 

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We saw where Ingrid Lashley was appointed to 9 State boards under Dr Rowley which is technically worse than the appointment of Calder Hart who once controlled several of the country’s largest State-owned corporations with assets of approximately $100 billion (not million) which were under his control. Also under Dr Rowley, we saw the appointment of Christian Mouttet who is head of Prestige Holdings (KFC, Starbucks, Subway etc) as a one-man commission-of-inquiry to investigate the crooked Cab Star multi-million-dollar lease. The thing is that Dr Rowley even admitted there was something wrong with the lease. This investigation was a white wash as we still don’t know who the owner of the Cabo Star is, since the findings of the inquiry was never made public. It is widely felt that it is owned by another one of the 1% elites and a friend of Mr Mouttet – the investigator.  The list of interlocking ownership and directorships is mind boggling. Additionally, under the Dr Rowley’s administration, he literally handed over the State’s security apparatus to the 1% and thereafter spying and hacking became the order of the day. The T&T Government purchased the latest Pegasus spyware from Israel and put it in the hands of the said 1% removing all checks and balances required by the Israeli company. With Pegasus in hand it was easy to control the police and the judiciary. The handover of the high-tech equipment now meant that the drug cartels now had access to equipment that even the international mafia did not have access to. Incidentally, the drug cartels are part and parcel of the 1%. All the most dreaded elements of society were now lined up with the PNM.

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Separate from the official government ministries, the myriad of State owned or controlled bodies are known to have annual budgets in the tens of millions and some in the billions which are normally doled out to the same crooked suspects for the past few decades.  We can state categorically that each of the boards named here has between 5 to 10 members, each board member is known to be paid between $30,000 to $50,000 per month and in some instances much more.  With an average of about 70 such boards, if we use the lower salary of $30,000 x 5 board members, each board receives $150,000. per month, therefore 70 boards are being paid $10,500,000 (million) per month or well over a billion dollars per year…just for boards / commissions, who feel it is their right to give the state’s money over to the elites ostensibly for favors. The figures are most likely twice that amount since we worked with the lowest possible data. The figures stated here exclude the substantive ministries but these 70+ State boards also hand out contracts in their own right without oversight by the Auditor General. It is noted that the auditor general report for 2023/2024 stated there was some 3 billion in revenue unaccounted for which was disputed by the finance Minister but the Privy Council ruled in favour of the Auditor General stating it is her right and duty to submit the discrepancy. For decades, every single year the Auditor General report tells of discrepancies, missing contracts and data that shows prima facie corruption but the government continues to lay the report in Parliament and using their parliamentary majority, accepts them without investigation or without prosecuting the culpable officials. In short, the PNM is part and parcel of this wholesale corruption and Dr Rowley quickly moved to block the implementation of the procurement legislation that would have gone a long way in fixing it.

 

 The monthly board figure of $10,500 ,000 (millions) does not account for staff, building rental, insurance policies, legal fees, private security, vehicles and the myriad of contracts all these boards have been dishing out each year. The cumulative figure easily amounts to billions of dollars per year.  The new PM, KPB, told us one week ago that building rentals amounted to an astounding ½ billion dollars every year and private security amounted to another ½ Billion dollars. This web site has already named several persons and organisations involved in corruption and theft which were reported to the authorities. These are now before the courts but the courts have refused to proceed which will expose the crooks since their primary job appears to be to protect the status quo.  

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While this is by no means a complete list of how the billions disappear, it is the majority of them.  

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State Corporations with Boards / Commissioners in alphabetical order:

1. ADB Bank

2. Amplia

3. Betting Levy Board

4. Cable and Wireless

5. Caribbean Airlines

6. Caribbean Dockyard

7. Caroni 

8. Central Bank

9. CEPEP

10. Children’s Authority

11. CLICO (State Controlled)

12. Corporations and Boroughs

13. East POS Development

14. Elections and Boundaries Commission

15. EMA (Environment)

16. EMBD

17. FCB Bank

18. Foreign Diplomatic Missions

19. Green Fund Board ($10 billion under control)

20. Guaracara Refining 

21. HDC (Housing)

22. Heritage and Stabilization Investment Fund

23. Heritage Petroleum

24. Home Mortgage Bank

25. Lake Asphalt

26. MTS

27. NAMDEVCO

28. NFM (National Flour Mills)

29. National Quarries

30. NCC (Nat. Carnival Commission)

31. NEDCO

32. NGC

33. NIB

34. NIDCO

35. NIF (Nat. Investment Fund)

36. NIPDEC

37. NLCB (Lottery)

38. NP 

39. OPR (Office of Procurement Regulations) 

40. PSAEL (Palo Seco Enterprises)

41. Paria Trading

42. Petrotrin (Mothballed)

43. Port Authorities (Air and Sea)

44. PPGLP (Phoenix Park Gas)

45. PTSC

46. PURE

47. Regulated Industries Comm.

48. RHA (Regional Health Auth. Boards)

49. Salaries Review Commission

50. Service Commission – Public

51. Service Commission – Judicial 

52. Service Commission – Police

53. Service Commission - Teaching

54. T&TEC

55. T&T Mortgage Bank

56. Telecommunications Authority

57. Tendering Committee

58. TGU (Trinidad Generation Unit)

59. THA

60. Tobago Express

61. TPHL (Trinidad Petroleum)

62. TSTT

63. TT POST

64. TTNGL

65. TTT / Radio

66. UDECOTT

67. Unit Trust

68. UTT (University TT)

69. UWI

70. WASA

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