Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert has ac­cused the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd of be­ing in breach of the Com­pa­nies Act, af­ter Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee con­firmed that the State com­pa­ny has been with­out a board since May 2025.

“That means that the com­pa­ny is in breach of the Com­pa­nies Act,” Im­bert said dur­ing ques­tion­ing at the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day as it ex­am­ined al­lo­ca­tions un­der the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get.

Im­bert, the MP for Diego Mar­tin North/East, raised the is­sue af­ter ask­ing Lee whether the ab­sence of a board was con­sis­tent with the Com­pa­nies Act and whether there could be le­gal con­se­quences.

Lee said he was not a lawyer and would have to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

Im­bert al­so ques­tioned who was re­spon­si­ble for prepar­ing the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial state­ments and sign­ing off on its ac­counts in the ab­sence of di­rec­tors.

Lee said he would have to ver­i­fy that in­for­ma­tion and get back to the com­mit­tee.

The ex­change fol­lowed ear­li­er ques­tion­ing by Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young, the MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, over the com­pa­ny’s $14.4 mil­lion op­er­a­tional al­lo­ca­tion for the 2026 fis­cal year.

Young point­ed out that the com­pa­ny’s pre­vi­ous board had re­signed af­ter the April 28, 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion and that no board had been ap­point­ed since May that year.

Lee con­firmed there was no board cur­rent­ly in place, adding that arrange­ments were be­ing made to ap­point one.

How­ev­er, he re­ject­ed Young’s sug­ges­tion that the ab­sence of a board had af­fect­ed the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions, ar­gu­ing that close to the full $14.4 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion had been spent.

Young ques­tioned how al­most the en­tire al­lo­ca­tion could have been spent when the com­pa­ny had no board and, ac­cord­ing to him, did not have a full com­ple­ment of ex­ec­u­tive staff.

Lee ex­plained that the sub­ven­tion cov­ered op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing salaries, health in­sur­ance, lease pay­ments, com­put­er ex­pens­es, main­te­nance and re­pairs.

He said in­fra­struc­ture projects were not fund­ed through that al­lo­ca­tion and sug­gest­ed that project fund­ing could be found un­der the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme.

Asked to ac­count for the ex­pen­di­ture, Lee said he would have to ex­am­ine the com­pa­ny’s bank state­ments to de­ter­mine whether ex­cess funds re­mained in its ac­counts.

The East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny is a State-owned com­pa­ny es­tab­lished to sup­port the eco­nom­ic, so­cial and phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of East Port-of-Spain.