Senior Investigative Reporter
Shaliza.hassanali@guardian.co.tt
Reverend Juliana Pena, the controversial spiritual adviser of the late former prime minister Patrick Manning, is reportedly in T&T and making her presence felt.
That’s according to defeated local government election candidate Kathleen Washington who claimed she was recently served an eviction notice by Pena to vacate her vandalised Light House Of Our Lord Jesus Christ Church in Heights of Gunapo, Arima.
However, Washington, who took full occupancy of the church in 2012 to prevent squatters from encroaching on the land, is refusing to budge.
She claimed she was just “one of 25 people” who utilised the church as an “emergency relief centre” in the last three years.
“I have been occupying it with good intentions,” she said.
The structure, she said, was used for workshops, community meetings, parties and even as a garage to repair vehicles.
“This has been the interim community facility,” she said, during an interview with the Sunday Guardian outside the church on Wednesday.
Work on the controversial multi-million church came to a halt three days before the May 24, 2010, general election when Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar produced documents purporting to show a direct connection between then prime minister Manning and former executive chairman of the Urban Development Corporation of T&T Calder Hart in the design and construction of Pena’s church.
The church was one of the factors that led Manning to lose the 2010 election.
But when the story broke of Pena’s affiliation to Manning, the prophetess, as she was known, became elusive. People in the Lalaja area, four-and-a-half miles along the Blanchisseuse Main Road from Arima, said they had spotted Pena in a yard where a dilapidated, white cocoa house was located, but most of them had refused to divulge information on her whereabouts when the Sunday Guardian visited in July 2010. One villager claimed they had a brief exchange, but most remained tight-lipped.
Some described the cocoa house where Pena reportedly found refuge as “a shack and not fit for living.” People later said she had fled the country and her whereabouts remained unknown for many years. But now, Washington is claiming that Pena is back and making moves.
DPP cleared Manning, Pena
Persad-Bissessar had called on Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard and the Police Commissioner for an investigation into possible criminal conduct concerning the construction of the church.
It was alleged that the Cemetery Street church was being constructed utilising state funds by Shanghai Construction Group (SCG) who hastily fled the project. The abandoned structure subsequently fell prey to scrap iron scavengers and looters.
It has been a shell for the past 12 years.
In 2013, Manning and Pena were cleared of any criminal misconduct by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard in the construction of the church since the police appeared not to have any evidence arising out of the matter.
Persad-Bissessar called for a probe on the grounds of whether Manning had corruptly and unlawfully interfered in the granting of state lands and other related approvals to the church or for its construction, whether state funds were used for/on the construction of the church and whether Hart corruptly procured SCG and others to design and construct the church. Police investigations revealed that Hart asked SCG’s director Michael Zhang to assist Pena and he agreed to build the church at a cost price by way of an act of goodwill to the people of T&T.
However, Pena failed to pay Zhang as agreed and he claimed that Udecott owed him money for work done on other projects which led to SCG abandoning the church project.
Cabinet’s plans
The People’s Partnership Government revealed that the agricultural land was leased in 1976 to Annette Williams.
A Cabinet Minute of September 30, 2005, showed the lease to Williams was terminated and Cabinet decided on the same day to grant an “institutional lease” to Pena’s church.
A Cabinet Note on the issue was presented by the Ministry of Agriculture but on August 22, 2005, the Director of Land Administration expressed concern about the “change of land use.”
In 2011, then works and transport minister Jack Warner under the People’s Partnership government conducted an assessment of the church’s incomplete structure. It was reported that the church site has a total area of 15,580.31 square metres with a floor area of 2,980.85 square metres.
Warner said Cabinet had considered three options for the use of the building–to house all government retreats, a halfway house for battered women, or a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts.
Dilapidated building
turned into a home
The church’s cornerstone engraved with Pena’s name was laid on December 30, 2005, but work on the project began in January 2010.
In 2018, Washington began utilising the church as a storage facility after she lost her two businesses in Arima.
Washington said six years ago her clothing shop was destroyed by the authorities and her items were put on the side of the road. Last year she had to close the doors of her thrift shop as she could not pay the rent.
Insisting she had no place to store her valuable belongings, she decided to block off a portion of the church using tarpaulin and began living on the property to safeguard her things.
For months, Washington said she “camped out” there. “My house was too small to keep my stuff.”
Washington lives in a small wooden hut on a hill about a quarter mile from the church.
Last month, Washington said some of her possessions on the southern side of the building were ravaged by a fire which she believed was wilfully set. Her items are now exposed to the full glare of villagers.
Inside the church, Washington’s clothing, books, dingy furniture, toys, three refrigerators, freezer and expired foodstuff were littered everywhere.
A green Almera car with deflated tyres was also parked inside the building.
Around the structure, there was towering grass.
Barbed wire and caution tape were draped around a large semi-circular area on the western side of the church which was filled with discoloured water.
There was also evidence of a recent fire on the southern side of the foundation as ashes blew everywhere.
In 2019 and 2023, Washington, 52, the interim president of the Guanapo Community and Environmental Development Organisation contested the local government elections as an independent candidate for the Blanchisseuse/Santa Rosa area but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
Back to complete church
Washington claimed she was visited by Pena twice late last year.
“The first time she came she was very positive. Yes, she is in the country. She is right here. I am positive. She came here about three months ago. She told me that God had sent her to complete the church. I told her that God had already sent me to assist.”
Washington said she informed Pena that if she serves the same supreme being as her, then “God is a spirit of inclusion and therefore we should share,” referring to the church.
Washington said Pena told her she had been out of the country for ten years.
Asked if she was stunned by Pena’s sudden appearance, Washington said no.
“What I find shocking is that now she has come back to the community and she knows that this community is a highly depressed community, we have no facilities whatsoever, and I thought she would have come back with a plan to assist the community.”
She said during the construction phase, residents and farmers in the community benefitted from paved roads.
“Our community needs a lot of help. The community has nothing. We have the negatives. But there are also a lot of positives in Guanapo.”
The second time Pena showed up, Washington claimed, was when she was served with an eviction notice which stated “that we should leave immediately”.
That notice, she said, was destroyed in the fire.
The Sunday Guardian asked several residents in the community if they had seen Pena. Many said if Pena came quietly they would not have known.
“I did not see her and did not hear anyone mention anything,” said one woman who lives close to the church.
Questioned if she was given authorisation to occupy the property, Washington said she did not need permission as the place was abandoned. Asked if she intended to vacate the building, Washington said she would put up a fight.
“I would not be moving until I have something concrete from the State. I have spoken to my attorney and they have assured me that the only people who could move me from here is the State based on the length of time that I have been here.”
Washington’s next step is to erect galvanise sheeting on the foundation which could cost $150,000 with labour included.
If she uses clay blocks, Washington said, it would cost more.
“The plan for the foundation is that the people who were living here before in a really, really, sorry state they were more or less outsmarted by Patrick Manning and they … we have decided that in the event that we get through with the place that we would block it up and secure residency for them.
“Our intention is to take that foundation and convert it into a home where the people who were living here before and have been in a very depressed state right now, we plan to reinstate them into the property.”
Some residents complained that the church had been attracting too many squatters and even claimed the police recently discovered guns among their belongings. This could not be verified with law enforcement officers.
Washington, however, denied illegal activities have been taking place there.
The residents argued that the church had been idle for too long, stating it should have been either demolished or utilised as a community centre.
“I went to the Government to use the church as a homework centre for the struggling children in the community but they never took me on,” said a female retiree.
“It has been 14 years now since this church scandal. It gave Guanapo a bad name. We have never recovered from that.”