PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed the let­ters of ap­point­ment to the new di­rec­tors of First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Ltd, the 100-per cent State-owned com­pa­ny that holds the State’s 60.1 per cent stake in First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings, the pub­licly list­ed com­pa­ny.

As re­ports swirled that a new board was to be ap­point­ed, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo con­firmed those re­ports to be true.

In a brief re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing, the Min­is­ter said, “Yes. Pro­posed board mem­bers re­ceived let­ters to­day.”

In re­sponse to a ques­tion ask­ing if he had any con­cern with re­gard to the per­for­mance of First Cit­i­zens over the last year, said, Tan­coo said, “There is ob­vi­ous room for im­prove­ment in the bank’s per­for­mance.”

He al­so re­spond­ed to a query con­cern­ing the new board’s abil­i­ty to meet the cri­te­ria list­ed un­der the Cen­tral Bank’s “fit and prop­er” test.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly all di­rec­tors are able to pass the fit and prop­er test,” said Tan­coo.

The Min­istry of Fi­nance would lat­er is­sue a press re­lease con­firm­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance pre­sent­ed in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to new mem­bers of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Lim­it­ed.

The new board com­pris­es chair­man Shankar Bidaisee, deputy chair­man Pro­fes­sor Ster­ling Frost, and di­rec­tors Crys­telle Smith, Prakash Dhan­ra­jh, Sandy Roopc­hand, Jo-Anne Boodoos­ingh, Nichelle Grander­son and Ja­van Lewis.

First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Ltd is the state-owned hold­ing com­pa­ny that man­ages Cor­po­ra­tion Sole’s ma­jor­i­ty stake in First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings (FCGFH). FCGFH is the pub­licly list­ed par­ent com­pa­ny of the First Cit­i­zens Bank, one of the T&Ts lead­ing fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.

These ap­point­ments came just un­der a week af­ter a me­dia re­port raised ques­tions about the re­tire­ment of its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Karen Dar­basie.

The First Cit­i­zens Group is­sued a no­tice clar­i­fy­ing the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day.

The no­tice stat­ed a spe­cial meet­ing of the boards of First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings and First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd was held on Au­gust 22, 2025.

FCB said in the no­tice, “Our group CEO, Karen Dar­basie, has pro­ceed­ed on ap­proved va­ca­tion leave from Au­gust 21, 2025 and will re­tire ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 21, 2025. The board, man­age­ment and staff ex­tend our sin­cere grat­i­tude to Ms Dar­basie for her dili­gence, ded­i­ca­tion, busi­ness acu­ity and in­tegri­ty in lead­ing the First Cit­i­zens Group to where it is to­day. We all wish her well in her fu­ture en­deav­ours.”

The no­tice, which was pub­lished in both lo­cal me­dia and on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change, con­firmed that the board had ap­point­ed Ja­son Julien, who cur­rent­ly is group deputy CEO, busi­ness gen­er­a­tion, to act as group CEO in Dar­basie’s ab­sence with ef­fect from Au­gust 22, 2025 un­til she pro­ceeds on pre-re­tire­ment leave on Oc­to­ber 21.

The no­tice al­so con­firmed Julien will as­sume the sub­stan­tive po­si­tion as group CEO when Dar­basie re­tires of­fi­cial­ly.

The no­tice al­so stat­ed cur­rent gen­er­al man­ag­er, re­tail and com­mer­cial bank­ing of First Cit­i­zens Bank Sana Rag­bir had been ap­point­ed to act as group deputy CEO, busi­ness gen­er­a­tion, from Au­gust 22 while Julien is act­ing as group CEO.