Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Al­though cur­rent T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety (TTRCS) pres­i­dent Jill de Bourg will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion in Sat­ur­day’s poll at Hillview Col­lege in Tu­na­puna, some mem­bers are ex­press­ing a lack of con­fi­dence in the elec­tion process.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, de Bourg, who has been in the po­si­tion since 2018, said her de­ci­sion was root­ed in a deep com­mit­ment to the on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment and growth of her­self and the broad­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an com­mu­ni­ty be­yond the Red Cross.

Ac­cord­ing to ar­ti­cle 43 of the TTRCS con­sti­tu­tion, a pres­i­dent or any ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber who has served two con­sec­u­tive terms (six years) can­not seek an­oth­er term un­til a three-year lapse has passed.

But even with de Bourg’s de­par­ture, some mem­bers, who asked to re­main anony­mous, ad­mit­ted they were con­fused about the way for­ward, as they did not know who else they could vote for in the up­com­ing elec­tions. They added that they had no con­fi­dence in the nom­i­na­tion com­mit­tee.

“No­body knows where the list is. Who are the nom­i­nees? On­ly Jill knows. She is play­ing a game, be­cause who­ev­er she has go­ing up, once things go her way Sat­ur­day, they’re go­ing to bring her back,” one per­son told Guardian Me­dia.

Pri­or to de Bourg’s an­nounce­ment, mem­bers had al­ready raised con­cerns about the elec­tion process and ques­tioned why it was pro­ceed­ing as sched­uled on Au­gust 23.

“Jill, your si­lence and re­fusal to re­spond, meet and col­lab­o­rate are very, very dis­turb­ing. As a for­mer leader at dif­fer­ent lev­els with­in the T&T Red Cross, I can­not be­gin to fath­om your in­ten­tion and mind­set,” the se­nior of­fi­cial, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said.

A let­ter sent to de Bourg high­light­ed con­cerns about her lack of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and not­ed the elec­tion was pro­ceed­ing de­spite clear di­vi­sions with­in the gov­ern­ing coun­cil, con­fu­sion over the elec­toral process, dis­en­chant­ed mem­bers, and a mem­ber­ship sys­tem plagued by long de­lays, un­nec­es­sary ob­sta­cles, and a bur­den­some re­view process.

“These pro­posed elec­tions ap­pear to lack a cer­tain trans­paren­cy, and it would be un­for­tu­nate and even dis­cour­ag­ing for a ‘new’ pres­i­dent to start a term with an or­gan­i­sa­tion that is un­sta­ble with frac­tured re­la­tion­ships with­in the lead­er­ship and an or­gan­i­sa­tion in dis­ar­ray,” the let­ter read.

The se­nior of­fi­cial called on de Bourg to give se­ri­ous thought to the weeks ahead, the sig­nals be­ing sent, the dis­en­chant­ment of mem­bers and vol­un­teers, and the gen­er­al un­hap­py state of af­fairs that pre­vailed with­in and even around the TTRCS.

A mis­sion re­port by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Red Cross (IFRC), con­duct­ed in De­cem­ber 2024, high­light­ed is­sues with­in the TTRCS, in­clud­ing mis­man­age­ment, poor fi­nan­cial over­sight, and break­downs in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and gov­er­nance.

In No­vem­ber 2024, the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed its $730,000 an­nu­al sub­ven­tion to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In June 2025, Guardian Me­dia re­ceived re­ports of con­cerns from North Branch and Dis­as­ter Unit mem­bers re­gard­ing their mem­ber­ship sta­tus. At that time, they claimed long-stand­ing mem­bers were be­ing treat­ed like new ap­pli­cants and found that pay­ing the an­nu­al mem­ber­ship fee re­quired rec­om­men­da­tions and a cer­tifi­cate of char­ac­ter. They claimed their mem­ber­ship lapsed af­ter the North Branch was shut down and ques­tioned the ra­tio­nale for re­clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

In re­sponse, the TTRCS said they had im­ple­ment­ed stan­dard­ised pro­ce­dures for mem­ber­ship reg­is­tra­tion and re­new­al across all branch­es, in line with na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an gov­er­nance stan­dards.

Guardian Me­dia ob­tained sev­er­al oth­er let­ters sent to de Bourg from con­cerned TTRCS mem­bers ahead of Sat­ur­day’s elec­tion.

One mem­ber, who said they had been part of the TTRCS for 22 years, wrote, “I must say, I tru­ly don’t un­der­stand why Jill de Bourg con­tin­ues to be at the cen­tre of con­tro­ver­sy, nor do I un­der­stand why, af­ter so much crit­i­cism, she re­mains and con­tin­ues to op­er­ate in the same man­ner.”

Aside from the pres­i­dent, mem­bers have been asked to vote for a vice pres­i­dent, sec­re­tary, trea­sur­er, wel­fare di­rec­tor, and sev­er­al oth­er ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions.

In her re­lease yes­ter­day, de Bourg wrote, “At the AGM, you will dis­cov­er the re­mark­able achieve­ments of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety over the past six years, high­light­ing our jour­ney of growth, de­vel­op­ment, and the re­silience we’ve demon­strat­ed in sup­port­ing count­less com­mu­ni­ties.”

She said these lead­ers must be dri­ven not by per­son­al gain, but by a ded­i­ca­tion to self­less ser­vice, strate­gic think­ing, and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“As I move on, I do so with the hope that the new lead­er­ship that will be elect­ed on Au­gust 23, 2025, will car­ry for­ward the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mis­sion with re­newed vigour,” the re­lease said.