Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Van­dana Mo­hit, has dis­missed claims that so­cial grants are be­ing paid late, in­sist­ing that her min­istry has met its pay­ment oblig­a­tions, and warns against what she de­scribed as de­lib­er­ate mis­in­for­ma­tion.

Speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, Mo­hit said re­ports of de­layed pay­ments were false and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

“Let me ad­dress a per­sis­tent and mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tive that so­cial ser­vices grants are be­ing paid late by this min­istry. We in this Gov­ern­ment are not pay­ing grants late,” Mo­hit said.

“I want to be very clear, Jan­u­ary 2026 grants were processed and paid by the min­istry by the 1st of Jan­u­ary 2026.”

Mo­hit ac­cused Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of pro­mot­ing the claims, but main­tained the min­istry’s record shows oth­er­wise.

“We have been pay­ing grants on time,” she said.

She ac­knowl­edged that there was on­ly “one lit­tle is­sue” pre­vi­ous­ly in­volv­ing the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB), but said this was re­solved ur­gent­ly fol­low­ing in­ter­ven­tion at the high­est lev­el.

“On the in­struc­tion of our Prime Min­is­ter, I li­aised with the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, and I went to the NIB as a mat­ter of emer­gency to deal with that is­sue,” she said.

She fur­ther con­tend­ed that any de­lays out­side of Jan­u­ary 2026 fell out­side the con­trol of her min­istry.

“What this Gov­ern­ment will not do is al­low mis­in­for­ma­tion to un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in sys­tems that are in­tact and work­ing bet­ter than they have had in years,” Mo­hit added.

She al­so high­light­ed what she de­scribed as ma­jor gains be­tween May and De­cem­ber 2025, in­clud­ing re­duc­ing the back­log of se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion ap­pli­ca­tions from over 2,300 cas­es to 175. Mo­hit said these im­prove­ments were made de­spite in­her­it­ing a strained sys­tem.

“When our ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice, the so­cial ser­vices sys­tem was un­der strain. Back­logs were en­trenched, process­es were frag­ment­ed, in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion was weak, and too of­ten the most vul­ner­a­ble were made to wait the longest,” she said.

“We did not in­her­it a clean slate. We in­her­it­ed un­fin­ished work, de­layed pay­ments, out­dat­ed el­i­gi­bil­i­ty tools, and frac­tured da­ta sys­tems.”

Cox de­nies min­istry was ‘bro­ken’

How­ev­er, Mo­hit’s com­ments drew a fiery re­sponse from for­mer min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox, who re­ject­ed the claim that the min­istry was bro­ken when the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sumed of­fice.

“Let me be ab­solute­ly clear. Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit did not in­her­it a bro­ken min­istry,” Cox said in a state­ment.

“She in­her­it­ed a min­istry that was func­tion­ing, de­liv­er­ing, and pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens of this coun­try every sin­gle day.”

Cox told Guardian Me­dia that while so­cial pro­tec­tion sys­tems glob­al­ly face chal­lenges, the min­istry un­der her tenure was op­er­at­ing with pur­pose and co­or­di­na­tion, de­liv­er­ing ser­vices to se­nior cit­i­zens, per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, pub­lic as­sis­tance re­cip­i­ents, and food card ben­e­fi­cia­ries na­tion­wide.

She point­ed to re­forms im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing her tenure, in­clud­ing the clo­sure of a long-stand­ing loop­hole that al­lowed so­cial as­sis­tance cheques to be cashed at su­per­mar­kets.

“Fraud­sters could no longer cash cheques ex­ceed­ing $3,500 at su­per­mar­kets. That was not rhetoric. That was ac­tion,” Cox said.

Cox said qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als were al­so en­gaged on short-term con­tracts to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vice while the min­istry await­ed ap­provals from the ser­vice com­mis­sions.

How­ev­er, Cox ac­cused the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion of dis­man­tling key sys­tems through what she de­scribed as “high-hand­ed, ar­bi­trary de­ci­sions,” claim­ing that sev­er­al de­part­ments were re­duced to less than 50 per cent of re­quired staffing lev­els.

“Hu­man re­sources it­self was crip­pled, leav­ing lit­er­al­ly no one to process the work,” she said, adding that short-term con­tracts which ex­pired in April were not re­newed de­spite rec­om­men­da­tions for re-en­gage­ment.

Cox said the re­sult was wide­spread dis­rup­tion and grow­ing de­lays.

“Since this ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice, the min­istry now re­ceives let­ters dai­ly from dis­tressed cit­i­zens. The Om­buds­man is writ­ing an in­or­di­nate num­ber of let­ters to the min­istry,” she claimed.

She fur­ther al­leged that op­er­a­tional de­ci­sions were be­ing dri­ven by the min­is­ter and an ex­pand­ed min­is­te­r­i­al sec­re­tari­at rather than by pol­i­cy or op­er­a­tional ne­ces­si­ty.

Cox list­ed sev­er­al ini­tia­tives she said were al­ready in mo­tion when she left of­fice, in­clud­ing plans to re­duce the So­cial Wel­fare Di­vi­sion back­log, tran­si­tion path­ways from dis­abil­i­ty as­sis­tance to se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sions, mea­sures to re­duce de­fer­rals, and mem­o­ran­da of un­der­stand­ing with agen­cies such as the Civ­il Reg­istry, NIB, the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

She al­so claimed ma­jor projects have since stalled or been aban­doned, in­clud­ing the Tra­garete Road head of­fice project, the Ari­ma of­fice out­fit­ting, and a near­ly com­plet­ed so­cial­ly dis­placed cen­tre, which she said re­ceived no al­lo­ca­tion in the 2026 bud­get.

“That was not a bro­ken min­istry. That was a min­istry in mo­tion,” Cox said.