The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to ap­point a ma­jor­i­ty of the di­rec­tors on the board of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), which would en­sure con­trol by the State of the re­gion’s largest fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny.

The cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­sire to take con­trol of the board of RFHL was sig­nalled by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, in de­liv­er­ing the 2026 bud­get on Oc­to­ber 13.

“We have in­stalled new boards at First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Ex­im­bank, and we will move to in­stall a ma­jor­i­ty of di­rec­tors at Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed,” said Tan­coo.

The in­di­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion was con­firmed in RFHL’s 2025 an­nu­al re­port, which was post­ed on the com­pa­ny’s web­site yes­ter­day.

For its 2025 fi­nan­cial year, which ran from Oc­to­ber 1, 2024 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, RFHL had 12 di­rec­tors. Those di­rec­tors are: Vin­cent Pereira chair­man; Nigel Bap­tiste; Ian Ben­jamin; Dawn Cal­len­der; Shameer Mo­hammed; Michael Noel; Robert Ri­ley; Walt­nel X. Sosa; Kris­tine Thomp­son; Ja­son Mootoo; Robert Wick­ham and Col­in Soo Ping Chow.

Of the 12 di­rec­tors, Kris­tine Thomp­son re­tires from the board at the an­nu­al meet­ing, which is sched­uled for De­cem­ber 15, but will not of­fer her­self for re-elec­tion.

Mul­ti­ple sources told Guardian Me­dia that curent RFHL chair­man, Vin­cent Pereira is like­ly to re­sign from the board at the an­nu­al meet­ing on De­cem­ber 15, as he has turned 70, which is the age lim­it for the bank’s di­rec­tors

In RFHL’s 2026 fi­nan­cial year, which be­gan on Oc­to­ber 1, the Gov­ern­ment nom­i­nat­ed three di­rec­tors who were ap­point­ed to RFHL’s board. They were Yash­mid Kara­math, Dr. Tim­o­thy Af­fon­so, and Nali­ni Bansee, who “were ap­point­ed di­rec­tors on Oc­to­ber 14, 2025, to fill the ca­su­al va­can­cies cre­at­ed by the un­time­ly pass­ing of Mark Lo­quan, and the re­spec­tive res­ig­na­tions of Shameer Mo­hammed and Walt­nel Sosa.” Sosa and Mo­hammed re­signed from the board on Oc­to­ber 4 and 7, 2025, re­spec­tive­ly.

The RFHL an­nu­al re­port re­veals that the Gov­ern­ment nom­i­nat­ed four ad­di­tion­al per­sons for elec­tion to the board at its an­nu­al meet­ing. Those pro­posed RFHL di­rec­tors are Dr. Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed, Rhion Karim, Dr. San­dra Sookram and Gre­go­ry Ar­mor­er. The elec­tion of the four would take the Gov­ern­ment-nom­i­nat­ed di­rec­tors on RFHL board to sev­en. Sources close to the RFHL board say the sit­u­a­tion is flu­id, as sev­er­al of the cur­rent board mem­bers are con­sid­er­ing ten­der­ing their res­ig­na­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment can ap­point a ma­jor­i­ty of di­rec­tors to the RFHL board be­cause the State con­trols a ma­jor­i­ty of the share­hold­ing of the fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny.

The list­ing of the top 10 RFHL share­hold­ers, in the an­nu­al re­port, in­di­cates three of the largest own­ers of the com­pa­ny are con­trolled by the Gov­ern­ment:

Name*Own­er­ship of shares*%tage of RFHL

Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund *49,021,779*29.92

Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board*30,811,955*18.81

Cor­po­ra­tion Sole*4,430,161*2.70

To­tal*84,263,895*51.43

With RFHL’s to­tal is­sued share cap­i­tal equal to 163,833,584, the three en­ti­ties above con­trolled by the Gov­ern­ment own 51.43 per cent of RFHL.

The Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund is 100 per cent owned by Cor­po­ra­tion Sole (the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance), who al­so ap­points the di­rec­tors of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board.