Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, says the two-day of­fi­cial vis­it of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di cost tax­pay­ers “around $900,000.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath al­so de­clared that ex­pen­di­ture as his­tor­i­cal­ly low.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, Sobers, when asked about the to­tal cost of the trip, said, “The cost of the trip is well un­der a mil­lion dol­lars. So, I think it would have been about nine hun­dred and some­thing thou­sand dol­lars. We could pro­duce the doc­u­ment, but it was nine hun­dred and some­thing thou­sand dol­lars.”

But while Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who was al­so mak­ing his way to Par­lia­ment, boast­ed that the mon­ey spent on Mo­di’s vis­it was the low­est for a state vis­it in the coun­try’s his­to­ry—“much less than any oth­er state vis­it we’ve had in this coun­try”—that re­mains up for de­bate.

A state­ment made in Par­lia­ment in 2023 by then for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne dur­ing a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing de­tailed the cost of sev­er­al state-host­ed events, in­clud­ing the vis­it of Otum­fuo Os­ei Tu­tu II.

“The vis­it by the As­an­te­hene, a king from Ghana, cost a to­tal of $830,000,” Browne said then.

Otum­fuo Os­ei Tu­tu II was the guest of ho­n­our at Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions dur­ing his vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go, which spanned from Ju­ly 30 to Au­gust 5, 2023. He was giv­en a roy­al wel­come at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, made cour­tesy calls on the Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent, and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Pan-African Trade and In­vest­ment Sym­po­sium. He al­so de­liv­ered a lec­ture at the Daa­ga Au­di­to­ri­um at UWI, toured en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties, and vis­it­ed his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sites.

His Majesty spent five days more in the coun­try than Mo­di, who ar­rived on Ju­ly 3, 2025, and left the fol­low­ing day.

Mo­di was wel­comed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port with a cer­e­mo­ni­al Guard of Ho­n­our. He was guest speak­er at a cul­tur­al pro­gramme at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Cou­va, and at­tend­ed a closed-door func­tion at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain. On the sec­ond day, Mo­di was con­ferred with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House. He al­so ad­dressed both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment dur­ing a spe­cial sit­ting, and bi­lat­er­al meet­ings were held at the Red House.

Dur­ing his vis­it, Mo­di pledged 2,000 lap­tops for stu­dents, 85 an­nu­al train­ing slots in fields such as pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion and foren­sic sci­ence, 20 dial­y­sis ma­chines, two sea am­bu­lances, a pros­thet­ic limb fit­ment camp for 800 peo­ple and US$1 mil­lion in agro-ma­chin­ery to the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NAMDE­V­CO).

Mo­di fur­ther an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia would is­sue Over­seas Cit­i­zen­ship of In­dia (OCI) cards up to the sixth gen­er­a­tion of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra in T&T.