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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Bell quits as TRHA chief

by

20110721

To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty CEO George Bell has re­signed. He ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion last week to To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, who is cur­rent­ly per­form­ing the du­ties of Sec­re­tary of Health and So­cial Ser­vices. Bell asked to be re­lieved of the po­si­tion in three months. Lon­don, how­ev­er, has not yet re­spond­ed to the res­ig­na­tion let­ter. The chief sec­re­tary con­firmed to re­porters at Wednes­day's post-ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil me­dia brief­ing that he had re­ceived Bell's let­ter of res­ig­na­tion, but de­clined fur­ther com­ment on the mat­ter. Bell's res­ig­na­tion has come amidst con­tro­ver­sy as the THA, in as­sert­ing its au­thor­i­ty to nom­i­nate mem­bers of the board, has been chal­lenged by To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin who in­sist­ed that this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was un­der her purview.

To date there is still no board. Lon­don said he had again writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, "ask­ing her to en­sure that this sit­u­a­tion is dealt with, with some ur­gency." He said he was dis­ap­point­ed but not sur­prised at the ap­par­ent new po­si­tion of the min­is­ter which sup­port­ed what the rest of the as­sem­bly had been say­ing all along. In May, Lon­don wrote Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­press­ing his con­ster­na­tion that Al­leyne-Top­pin had in­tend­ed to change eight of the nine THA nom­i­nees. He said the min­is­ter had sub­mit­ted her own lists, even against the ad­vice of her coun­ter­part THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Ash­worth Jack. Lon­don said not even for­mer prime min­is­ters Bas­deo Pan­day or Patrick Man­ning had ever ques­tioned the right of the THA to nom­i­nate the board.

"No oth­er gov­ern­ment has ever dis­re­spect­ed the in­sti­tu­tion in such an ob­scene man­ner and at­tempt­ed to un­der­mine the in­tegri­ty of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly by mak­ing such an in­cur­sion in­to what is clear­ly by law or prece­dence the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly," he said. Lon­don not­ed that the Min­is­ter of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment was an ap­point­ed po­si­tion made by the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go and did not have to be held by a To­bag­on­ian. "To­day it might be a To­ba­go-born min­is­ter that we are al­low­ing to do that...We do not know who it will be in the next five years," he said. "This is not just a mat­ter for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, it is a mat­ter for all To­bag­o­ni­ans to ask them­selves whether this is some­thing they are pre­pared to ac­cept."


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