In March 2024, the Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk first high­light­ed the decades-long de­ba­cle of fam­i­lies wait­ing for land which they pur­chased from Pol­i­cy Con­sul­tants Lim­it­ed, owned by Dr Car­son Charles, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) as well as for­mer min­is­ter of works and trans­port and for­mer MP of St Joseph.

It’s now been two years since the sto­ry broke, and noth­ing has changed.

Last week, Guardian Me­dia found an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple, this time in Long­denville, who feel conned by Charles.

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

What should have been a joy­ful chap­ter in the lives of 25 fam­i­lies who pur­chased land at Hillview Park, Long­denville, de­vel­oped in­to a night­mare of bro­ken promis­es and emo­tion­al dev­as­ta­tion when they dis­cov­ered the de­vel­op­er, Pol­i­cy Con­sul­tants Ltd (PCL), had no req­ui­site ap­provals for the site.

More than 12 years af­ter buy­ing their land, many of the pur­chasers are still await­ing their deeds from the com­pa­ny.

In 2014, the fam­i­lies bought one-lot parcels at Ja­gas­sar Av­enue from PCL, each cost­ing be­tween $350,000 and $400,000.

Buy­ers had three months to pay cash for the land.

The pur­chasers, many of whom are aca­d­e­mics, work­ing pro­fes­sion­als and re­tirees, were promised they would re­ceive their deeds and util­i­ties ser­vices a year af­ter sign­ing a pur­chase agree­ment.

These promis­es, they said, are yet to be ful­filled.

Hillview Park is the fourth PCL de­vel­op­ment where buy­ers raised con­cerns about the com­pa­ny’s fail­ure to ob­tain the req­ui­site ap­provals for the sites. The oth­er de­vel­op­ments are San­ta Cruz, Rousil­lac and Clax­ton Bay.

The frus­trat­ed buy­ers said they were fed up with what they called lame ex­cus­es.

“We keep com­mu­ni­cat­ing with them and they al­ways give us one ex­cuse af­ter an­oth­er… say­ing yes, they’re do­ing this and they’re do­ing that,” com­plained a Hillview Park buy­er who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty.

“We have reached our boil­ing point.”

Last month, the pur­chas­er emailed PCL a let­ter ex­press­ing his dis­gust and dis­ap­point­ment over his 14-year wait for his deed and util­i­ty con­nec­tions.

“I am present­ly con­sid­er­ing le­gal ac­tion with costs. So, you tell me what to do next? I have tried call­ing you (PCL) on many oc­ca­sions to no avail,” he wrote in his let­ter.

PCL blames ap­proval process

PCL apol­o­gised to the buy­er for not com­plet­ing the project on time.

The com­pa­ny ex­plained in an email that “much of the de­lay” was ob­tain­ing ap­provals from gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

PCL al­so stat­ed that they had re­ceived ap­provals from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, WASA, Drainage Di­vi­sion, High­ways Di­vi­sion, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty and Fire Ser­vices on the project.

“In fact, we can now ad­vise that we have re­ceived the nec­es­sary cor­re­spon­dence from T&TEC re­gard­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the ser­vice in the de­vel­op­ment. We now an­tic­i­pate elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the site by May of this year, fol­low­ing which we will re­turn to the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion for fi­nal de­vel­op­ment ap­proval,” the email stat­ed.

“We have been in pos­ses­sion of T&TEC ap­proval for more than five years. How­ev­er, we were not suc­cess­ful in hav­ing them make arrange­ments for pay­ment and in­stal­la­tion un­til re­cent­ly,” the let­ter ex­plained.

PCL al­so pro­vid­ed the pur­chas­er with a copy of a let­ter dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 9, 2026, ad­dressed to Charles from T&TEC in­form­ing him that a pay­ment of $349,043.55 would be re­quired for the sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty to the de­vel­op­ment.

The pay­ment must be made on or be­fore May 15, 2026.

Fail­ure to pay, T&TEC stat­ed the es­ti­mate will be reeval­u­at­ed, and a re­vised cost would then be ap­plied.

Ef­forts to hold PCL to ac­count

Armed with their 2014 pur­chase agree­ments from PCL, a group of irate pur­chasers con­verged on the four acres of land in Long­denville to voice their dis­plea­sure with PCL’s failed promis­es.

“This is un­ac­cept­able,” said one of the buy­ers, re­fer­ring to the length of time they have been wait­ing for their deeds and wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tions.

“It’s like a spin­ning top in mud. We are go­ing nowhere with this land,” he said, vent­ing his feel­ings dur­ing an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian.

Af­ter los­ing his re­fin­ery op­er­a­tor job in 2018, fol­low­ing Petrotrin’s clo­sure, Boyo Ba­boolal (not his re­al name) bought the land util­is­ing his en­tire ex­it pay­ment from the oil com­pa­ny and part of his life sav­ings.

Ba­boolal ini­tial­ly be­lieved he had made a sol­id in­vest­ment with the pur­chase.

But over time, he said it turned in­to a long, drawn-out dis­ap­point­ment.

“All we have been faced with is wor­ries and stress.”

Six of the 25 buy­ers are re­tirees, two of whom have since died.

“These re­tirees nev­er col­lect­ed their deeds or lived on the lots. It’s so de­press­ing.”

An­oth­er re­tiree, Lin­da Ma­habir (not her re­al name), said she nev­er ex­pect­ed this from PCL.

“I trust­ed this guy (Charles). Every­body trust­ed him…he was a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. We feel de­ceived and be­trayed.”

Ma­habir, 67, has been a can­cer sur­vivor for 11 years.

Hav­ing fought many bat­tles, Ma­habir said she had no strength to take on this chal­lenge.

Ma­habir worked at a pub­lic hos­pi­tal for 35 years as a psy­chi­atric nurse be­fore re­tir­ing.

When Ma­habir saw the land for sale in 2014, she jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Two years lat­er, she said she re­gret­ted her pur­chase, stat­ing it brought her on­ly mis­ery and heartache.

Le­gal ma­neu­vers

In a let­ter dat­ed June 28, 2016, Ma­habir, through at­tor­ney Reynold Vish­nu Ojah Reesal, in­formed Charles that, by virtue of Clause 3 of the pur­chase agree­ment, a deed of con­veyance was to be ex­e­cut­ed in favour of his client at the ex­pi­ra­tion of 12 months, but this was not done.

This was af­ter Ma­habir had wait­ed 22 months for her deed.

Hav­ing breached Clause 3, Reesal stat­ed in his let­ter that he was in­struct­ed by Ma­habir to ter­mi­nate the con­tract with PCL and re­quest­ed that the $400,000 she paid for the land be re­turned with­in 30 days.

Charles promised to re­fund Ma­habir $20,000 of the land’s pur­chase price and in­stall a $5,000 wa­ter me­ter at the com­pa­ny’s ex­pense.

“The prop­er­ty was put on the mar­ket for sale, but no buy­ers came for­ward,” Ma­habir re­called.

Sad­dled with the land, Ma­habir said, PCL grant­ed her per­mis­sion in 2020 to con­struct her home.

“I spent hun­dreds of dol­lars pur­chas­ing truck-borne wa­ter to plas­ter the walls and build the foun­da­tion,” she re­called.

“Thieves al­so stole my build­ing ma­te­ri­als, de­stroyed the wa­ter tank and even cut a hole in my chain link fence. I was ter­ri­fied. I went through hell and back.”

She could not con­tin­ue build­ing.

The un­fin­ished house, which cost Ma­habir $450,000, is falling in­to ru­ins af­ter months of ne­glect.

It is al­so sur­round­ed by tow­er­ing grass.

An­oth­er in­com­plete house, a stone’s throw away, is al­so aban­doned.

These two par­tial struc­tures are the on­ly build­ings on the sprawl­ing land.

Last Mon­day, Ma­habir said a bush fire raged through her lot and al­most burnt her house.

“Just watch­ing my house is painful. It’s heart­break­ing,” she said, her voice crack­ing as she spoke.

Apart from her fi­nances run­ning low, Ma­habir’s hope is al­so dwin­dling.

Fight­ing hard to con­tain her tears, Ma­habir said all she want­ed was a house to en­joy her twi­light years with her fam­i­ly.

Charles: We are not hid­ing

In a tele­phone in­ter­view last Wednes­day, Charles said his com­pa­ny has ob­tained all ap­provals for the de­vel­op­ment, fol­low­ing what he said was a tor­tur­ous jour­ney.

The de­vel­op­er promised that by May, T&TEC will in­stall their poles and lines and sup­ply the de­vel­op­ment with elec­tric­i­ty.

“Once we have elec­tric­i­ty, it means that we can get the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (CBC) ap­proval. We al­ready have ap­provals from WASA. We have all the wa­ter me­tres in­stalled. All the lines are there. Every­thing is there. So it’s just to turn it on.”

Asked why PCL failed to turn on the wa­ter in the de­vel­op­ment, Charles replied, “No­body is liv­ing there.”

He said the big­ger prob­lem was elec­tric­i­ty.

“Be­cause peo­ple can’t go and live some­where with­out elec­tric­i­ty. That is what has been keep­ing the project back…elec­tric­i­ty.”

Fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion, Charles said, PCL would need CBC’s ap­proval, which is the last step.

Charles said the deeds can­not be hand­ed over un­til all ap­provals are met.

“Un­der the Re­al Prop­er­ty Or­di­nance (RPO), you can­not give out ti­tles un­til you have every sin­gle ap­proval.”

Charles said he knows the wait for some buy­ers has been “dif­fi­cult and painful.”

He said not all Hillview Park pur­chasers have been wait­ing more than a decade for their deeds.

“Some have been wait­ing longer than oth­ers.”

He said a buy­er can can­cel the sale agree­ment if they find the process is tak­ing too long.

“So we have re­fund­ed sev­er­al clients over time who just did not wish to con­tin­ue. The ones who have stayed on, we are very ap­pre­cia­tive that they have done so and that we have a com­mit­ment to even­tu­al­ly give them their ti­tles, notwith­stand­ing what­ev­er tri­als that we have gone through. That’s why I said we don’t want to lose our clients. We want to de­liv­er what we promised to them.”

The for­mer min­is­ter re­fut­ed claims that his com­pa­ny has been dodg­ing clients and re­fus­ing calls.

“We are not hid­ing from peo­ple.”

Charles said the price PCL has been sell­ing the land has been rea­son­able, with some clients re­turn­ing to buy more lots.

“But the ap­proval process is a night­mare,” Charles ad­mit­ted.

He said a de­vel­op­er has to go through sev­er­al agen­cies and min­istries be­fore ap­proval is au­tho­rised.

“But my com­pa­ny has to be tor­tured be­cause of the fact that I choose to be in pub­lic life, and I am try­ing to make a liv­ing for my­self and my work­ers. It is very hurt­ful to our com­pa­ny when we have to deal with pub­lic sto­ries.”

Charles promised to con­tact Hillview Park buy­ers to in­form them of the lat­est de­vel­op­ments.

Checks by Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk showed that de­vel­op­ing a hous­ing project typ­i­cal­ly re­quires ap­provals from sev­er­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, WASA, T&TEC, the EMA and the rel­e­vant re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion. While the statu­to­ry time­frame for a de­ci­sion from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion is about two months, ap­provals from oth­er agen­cies can take sev­er­al ad­di­tion­al months de­pend­ing on the scale of the project and whether in­fra­struc­ture up­grades or en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ances are re­quired. As a re­sult, de­vel­op­ers have said the full ap­provals process for a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment can take any­where from six months to a year, and in some cas­es longer if re­vi­sions or ad­di­tion­al stud­ies are need­ed.

How the process worked

PCL would pur­chase large pieces of land, then di­vide them up in­to plots and sell them for around $300,000.

Then they would be­gin the ap­proval process to de­vel­op the land, and seek per­mis­sion from T&TEC and WASA and oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies.

Be­fore and af­ter pur­chase, the com­pa­ny would give guar­an­tees to the fam­i­lies that they would ob­tain util­i­ty and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion ap­provals at the sites with­in six months to a year.

How­ev­er, ap­provals have not been grant­ed for the de­vel­op­ments in ques­tion for as many as 20 years af­ter pay­ment.

Charles al­ways blamed the reg­u­la­to­ry process.

Prop­er­ty 1 - Sam Bou­caud Ex­ten­sion, San­ta Cruz

In Sam Bou­caud Ex­ten­sion, PCL sold land from a 3.4-hectare de­vel­op­ment and promised ap­provals with­in a year.

The land was par­celled in­to lots of 8,000 square feet and sold for $300,000 each.

For some res­i­dents, it’s been over 20 years.

In 2024, PCL said it was still wait­ing on fi­nal ap­proval from the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

“I would not have pur­chased cat in bag from any­body, but be­cause of his name and him be­ing a politi­cian at the time, I thought that we would not get a runaround,” one per­son had told Guardian Me­dia.

“At this stage, every­body is fed up. We are not see­ing an end. The mon­ey they took from us for San­ta Cruz, they start­ed to de­vel­op in the south. They were tak­ing mon­ey from one phase to de­vel­op an­oth­er phase. I know some­one whose broth­er died while wait­ing for his land. His wife got it sold in cash be­cause she just want­ed out of the coun­try. I’ve tried to sell through two agents for three years, and they keep ask­ing for ap­provals. We are stuck in lim­bo,” an­oth­er had said.

At that time, Charles had al­so said the ap­proval process was slow.

“They can’t say they don’t have any­thing. They have their ti­tle doc­u­ments, but yes, it’s cor­rect that ap­provals are a very slow and te­dious process. I’ve had cause to write long let­ters ex­plain­ing and com­plain­ing about the slow process of ap­provals. We took years to get WASA ap­provals, but we did fi­nal­ly get it. And we got wa­ter con­nec­tions that are there. We did take a num­ber of years to get through with it, and I com­plain my­self. I know peo­ple must be frus­trat­ed,” he had said.

Prop­er­ty 2- Rousil­lac

The prop­er­ty is lo­cat­ed at Grant’s Park, Rousil­lac De­vel­op­ment.

“I had a young fam­i­ly. We were giv­en a lot of pos­i­tive talk that we know now was a lot of gas-up talk from Pol­i­cy Con­sul­tants. There are peo­ple here who bought land over 17 years ago and are still strug­gling with­out wa­ter. Mr Charles, for the last five years, hasn’t an­swered his phone. When you vis­it his of­fice, it is al­ways locked up,” one fam­i­ly claimed.

Each client, af­ter pur­chase, was asked by Pol­i­cy Con­sul­tants to put $5,000 to­wards in­stalling WASA wa­ter me­ters. An el­der­ly res­i­dent named Ran­dall said he re­fused to pay be­cause WASA in­formed in­quir­ing res­i­dents that it was the de­vel­op­er’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Prop­er­ty 3- Clax­ton Bay

PCL’s oth­er prop­er­ty is lo­cat­ed at Ocean View De­vel­op­ment, Clax­ton Bay. Those liv­ing there, around sev­en fam­i­lies, have been there for more than 15 years. Like the oth­er two de­vel­op­ments, the site has no ap­provals.