The Trinidad Office of the President disagrees with the report over the multi-million-dollar waterfront financing deal.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Office of the President has described as “reckless and wholly improper insinuations” a publication circulating on social media that attempts to portray either the Office of the President or President Christine Kangaloo “as the author, architect, or wrongdoer in respect of any transaction involving the State”. In a […] The post The Trinidad Office of the President disagrees with the report over the multi-million-dollar waterfront financing deal. appeared first on Caribbean Times.
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PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Office of the President has described as “reckless and wholly improper insinuations” a publication circulating on social media that attempts to portray either the Office of the President or President Christine Kangaloo “as the author, architect, or wrongdoer in respect of any transaction involving the State”.
In a statement, the Office of the President states that in the constitutional order of Trinidad and Tobago, the President performs functions in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of the Republic, including, where applicable, on the advice of Cabinet or a Minister acting under Cabinet authority pursuant to section 80 (1) of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago.
“The language used in the publication is an affront, not only to the dignity of the highest office in the land, but to the standards of decency, responsibility, and respect upon which any democratic society must depend.
“The suggestion that the Office of the President has been ‘prostituted’ in relation to any financial arrangement is to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. It is a scandalous and degrading slur. It is especially repugnant that the article names the current holder of the Office of the President.”
The statement said that Trinidad and Tobago “cannot preserve public trust if its most solemn institutions are treated as targets for insult, innuendo, and viral defamation.
“Robust scrutiny is part of democracy. Scurrilous attacks are not. They corrode respect for lawful authority, weaken public confidence and injure the democratic fabric of the Republic,” the statement said, adding “the Office of the President will issue any further statement as the facts require”.
The statement also follows the release of the 2025 Auditor General’s Report on the Public Accounts of Trinidad and Tobago, covering the financial year ending September 30, 2025, led by Auditor General Jaiwantie Ramdass.
The report noted that on February 19, 2025, a 30-year sublease was executed between Port-of-Spain Waterfront Development Ltd (POSWDL) and the President, providing for fixed semi-annual rental payments by the Government.
It said that this agreement served as the cornerstone of a complex TT$5.4 billion (One TT dollar = 0.16 cents) financial arrangement that has drawn sharp scrutiny in the Auditor General’s 2025 Report on the public accounts.
While the arrangement is not officially classified as government debt, the Auditor General warned that it creates a massive indirect obligation for the State, potentially obscuring the true level of public liabilities.
It stated POSWDL subsequently used this sublease to secure a US$500 million (TT$3.37 billion) financing arrangement with a US-based bank, UMB Bank NA, Kansas City, Missouri, through secured notes due 2040.
While the Government has not classified this as “official debt,” the Auditor General noted that the loan is being repaid entirely with public funds through semi-annual rent payments totaling over TT$5.4 billion over the life of the lease.
The post The Trinidad Office of the President disagrees with the report over the multi-million-dollar waterfront financing deal. appeared first on Caribbean Times.
