An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Navin Dook­er­an, CEO of the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ex­im­Bank), was yes­ter­day ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, Guardian Me­dia has learned. No of­fi­cial rea­son for his sud­den de­par­ture was pro­vid­ed.

Dook­er­an, who had served as CEO for six and a half years, re­spond­ed briefly when con­tact­ed, say­ing, “I am proud of what we ac­com­plished dur­ing my tenure, and I wish the best for the in­sti­tu­tion and the coun­try.”

At­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to ob­tain clar­i­fi­ca­tion from Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Kennedy Swarats­ingh on the rea­sons be­hind the ter­mi­na­tion and the ap­point­ment of an act­ing CEO were un­suc­cess­ful.

Tan­coo read the What­sapp mes­sage but did not re­spond be­fore press time, while Swarats­ingh did not an­swer sev­er­al calls.

In Sep­tem­ber, a dai­ly news­pa­per re­port­ed leaked da­ta show­ing that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and poul­try com­pa­nies dom­i­nat­ed the bank’s for­eign ex­change dis­tri­b­u­tions over the past five years.

Ac­cord­ing to Ex­im­Bank records, from 2020 to mid-2025, the in­sti­tu­tion al­lo­cat­ed US$1.4 bil­lion in forex to 123 com­pa­nies un­der the es­sen­tial win­dow.

Among the largest re­cip­i­ents were Arawak and Com­pa­ny Ltd with over US$76 mil­lion, Nu­trim­ix US$78 mil­lion, Smith Robert­son and Com­pa­ny Ltd (now Aven­ta T&T) US$100 mil­lion, Prices­mart Clubs TT US$44 mil­lion, Bry­den PL Ltd US$29 mil­lion, Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics US$51 mil­lion, and Vem­co (a di­vi­sion of CDP Trinidad Lim­it­ed, now Aca­do) US$19 mil­lion.

In Sep­tem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that the lack of trans­paren­cy in for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions was cre­at­ing deep dis­tor­tions in the econ­o­my, con­cen­trat­ing wealth in the hands of a few while plac­ing small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es un­der strain.

The sud­den ter­mi­na­tion of Dook­er­an adds a new di­men­sion to on­go­ing dis­cus­sions about ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the man­age­ment of state fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, leav­ing many stake­hold­ers await­ing fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion from gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to sev­er­al busi­ness­es that ben­e­fit from Ex­im­Bank’s for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions.
Some de­scribed the move as un­ex­pect­ed but ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the bank would con­tin­ue to op­er­ate smooth­ly. Oth­ers em­pha­sised that con­tin­ued ac­cess to for­eign ex­change is crit­i­cal for their op­er­a­tions and growth.

A few said they hoped the lead­er­ship change would not dis­rupt on­go­ing busi­ness, while some de­clined to com­ment, cit­ing in­ter­nal dis­cus­sions.

The new Ex­im­Bank board re­ceived its in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment on Sep­tem­ber 25. It com­pris­es chair­man, Ed­win Chari­ah, deputy chair­man, Suresh Ma­haraj, and di­rec­tors, Nan­di­ni Nar­ine, Bhushan Singh and Joseph Ridge Paul.