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Thursday, July 31, 2025

New EMBD board meets with Agriculture Minister to discuss matters

by

Derek Achong
42 days ago
20250619
EMBD building in Couva.

EMBD building in Couva.

A new Board of Di­rec­tors of the State-owned Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EM­BD) has been named and some mem­bers have al­ready met with the line Min­is­ter to dis­cuss mat­ters.

The ap­point­ments of di­rec­tors Re­hen­dra Seemu­n­gal, Lester Chari­ah, and Dar­ren Gar­ner on Tues­day were an­nounced by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land, and Fish­eries in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Seemu­n­gal is a busi­ness­man and for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Hauliers As­so­ci­a­tion, while Chari­ah is an at­tor­ney-at-law.

Gar­ner, who was screened by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to con­test the Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive his ap­point­ment let­ter at a sub­se­quent date.

“To­geth­er, these board mem­bers bring a strong com­ple­ment of ex­pe­ri­ence and pro­fi­cien­cy across key sec­tors aligned with the EM­BD’s ex­pand­ing man­date,” the re­lease said.

“As cus­to­di­ans of the EM­BD’s de­vel­op­ment agen­da, the Board will be in­stru­men­tal in shap­ing pol­i­cy, guid­ing land man­age­ment ini­tia­tives, and ad­vanc­ing sus­tain­able land use prac­tices in sup­port of na­tion­al food se­cu­ri­ty and so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment,” it added.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram said that the ap­point­ments were a vi­tal step in ad­vanc­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s sus­tain­able land man­age­ment and agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

“I am con­fi­dent that this team’s col­lec­tive ex­per­tise and vi­sion will strength­en the EM­BD’s ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er on its man­date and pos­i­tive­ly im­pact com­mu­ni­ties across T&T,” Rati­ram said.

The re­lease stat­ed that the new board mem­bers met with Rati­ram and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Sad­dam Ho­sein to have strate­gic dis­cus­sions on en­hanc­ing the func­tion of the EM­BD in de­liv­er­ing its man­date.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the EM­BD’s on­go­ing car­tel law­suit against a group of con­trac­tors, for­mer EM­BD of­fi­cials and for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter and cur­rent En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal would be among the first is­sues that would be con­sid­ered by the new board.

When the pro­tract­ed and con­tro­ver­sial case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad on Tues­day, EM­BD’s lawyer An­drew Hunter, KC, said that the new board would have to make sev­er­al de­ci­sions in re­la­tion to the case in­clud­ing ap­prov­ing court fil­ings and the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­pert wit­ness­es.

Hunter said: “I wish I could give you an ex­act date but it is gov­ern­ment ap­point­ments. We hope it will take weeks and be done by the end of Ju­ly. It is not ide­al by any means.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ad­journed the case to No­vem­ber 24 for the process to be com­plet­ed and for EM­BD to re­port back to him.


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