The reg­u­la­tor of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try, the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) is once again with­out a chair, fol­low­ing the un­ex­plained de­par­ture of Enid Zephyrine, a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant in the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

Zephyrine was ap­point­ed to a two-year term of of­fice ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 3, 2021; her term of of­fice would have ex­pired on No­vem­ber 2, 2023.

Her pho­to­graph and short bi­og­ra­phy has been re­moved the TTSEC web­site. The staff was in­formed of Zephyrine’s de­par­ture ear­ly in Au­gust.

Con­tact­ed at her Min­istry of Fi­nance of­fice on Mon­day morn­ing, Zephyrine con­firmed she is “no longer with” the TTSEC, but de­clined to an­swer any oth­er ques­tions.

On Mon­day evening, a mes­sage was sent to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, to whom the TTSEC re­ports, en­quir­ing whether Zephyrine was still the chair of the Com­mis­sion. Im­bert read the mes­sage, but did not re­spond.

The ap­point­ment of the TTSEC com­mis­sion­ers is made in the name of the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

Zephyrine’s ap­point­ment, and those of the six oth­er com­mis­sion­ers of the TTSEC, was made in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tions 10 and 12 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act Chap­ter 83:02, ac­cord­ing to the no­tice of their ap­point­ment.

Sec­tion 10 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act stip­u­lates that T&T’s Pres­i­dent “shall ap­point all the com­mis­sion­ers and shall ap­point one of their num­ber to be its chair and an­oth­er com­mis­sion­er to be its deputy chair.”

Sec­tion 10 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act al­so stip­u­lates that the TTSEC “shall con­sist of no more than nine nor few­er than five in­di­vid­u­als...in­clud­ing:

• An at­tor­ney-at-law of at least ten years stand­ing; and

• A se­nior of­fi­cer from the Min­istry (of Fi­nance).

As Zephyrine was the on­ly se­nior of­fi­cer from the Min­istry of Fi­nance, ques­tions have been raised re­gard­ing whether the TTSEC is now prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed.

In a no­tice dat­ed Au­gust 23, the TTSEC an­nounced that a hear­ing in­to a mat­ter in­volv­ing Readymix (West In­dies) Ltd, set for Au­gust 24, had been can­celled.

“The hear­ing will be resched­uled for a date to be de­ter­mined. An up­dat­ed and re­vised no­tice of hear­ing will be pub­lished, up­on con­fir­ma­tion of the new date,” stat­ed the TTSEC no­tice. In its no­tice, the TTSEC did not ex­plain why last Thurs­day’s hear­ing was post­poned.

On Mon­day morn­ing, the Busi­ness Guardian sent the TTSEC’s act­ing CEO, Lystra Lu­cil­lio, sev­en ques­tions, in­clud­ing whether the Readymix hear­ing was post­poned be­cause of the lack of a chair.

Up to yes­ter­day morn­ing, the TTSEC had not re­spond­ed.

Asked on Mon­day whether Pres­i­dent’s House had re­ceived a no­tice of res­ig­na­tion from Zephyrine, a spokesper­son for the Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo said: “We do not have any­thing to say (on this is­sue).”

Sec­tion 12 (2) of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act states: “The chair­man may re­sign his mem­ber­ship by no­tice in writ­ing ad­dressed to the Pres­i­dent.”

The TTSEC was with­out a chair and a board of com­mis­sion­ers for near­ly eight months in 2020. Dou­glas Mendes SC, was ap­point­ed to chair­man the TTSEC on April 25, 2016.

He, and some of the com­mis­sion­ers ap­point­ed with him, served two, two-year terms, which ex­pired on April 24, 2020.

From then un­til De­cem­ber 2020, the TTSEC was with­out a board. The an­nounce­ment of a new TTSEC board was made by way of a no­tice on the com­mis­sion’s web­site on De­cem­ber 19, 2020.

Com­ment­ing on the is­sue at a news con­fer­ence on De­cem­ber 18, 2020, Im­bert seemed to place the blame for the 2020 de­lay in ap­point­ing the TTSEC board on pub­lic ser­vants.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at his of­fice, Im­bert said: “We now have a full board at the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion.

“There were some ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sues with­in the pub­lic ser­vice—and I am not go­ing in­to any great de­tail on this—but I just want to say that the on­ly peo­ple who get asked to ac­count for things in Trinidad and To­ba­go are the politi­cians.

“Quite of­ten there are is­sues with­in the pub­lic ser­vice, where mis­takes are made by pub­lic ser­vants, who are anony­mous. And the politi­cians get the blame. I am hap­py to say that the ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sues have been re­solved and we have the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment for a full board of the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion.”

The is­sue of the de­lay in ap­point­ing the TTSEC board in 2020 was first flagged in an ar­ti­cle in the Sep­tem­ber 9, 2020 edi­tion of the Ex­press Busi­ness mag­a­zine.

Asked whether the Min­istry of Fi­nance was aware that the TTSEC was with­out ei­ther a board or a sub­stan­tive CEO, an of­fi­cer of the Min­istry of Fi­nance said then: “There is a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed board, but the process is wait­ing on in­stru­ments from the Pres­i­dent.”

In the Sep­tem­ber 9, 2020, pub­li­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vi­sor to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, Cheryl Lala, said the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment for the new TTSEC board had been re­ceived by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.

But the in­stru­ments were sent back to the Cab­i­net sec­re­tari­at be­cause they con­tained “a few er­rors”.

About Enid Zephyrine

Mrs Enid Zephyrine is the Di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Man­age­ment and Ex­e­cu­tion Of­fice in the Min­istry of Fi­nance with over 30 years’ shared ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment and de­vel­op­ment fi­nance in the Pub­lic Sec­tor.

She served as a se­nior ad­vi­sor and mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors of the World Bank Group, in Wash­ing­ton DC from 2012 to 2014, as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor In­vest­ment/Di­vest­ment with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mon­i­tor­ing the state en­ter­pris­es un­der the purview of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT) and as di­rec­tor, Eco­nom­ic Man­age­ment with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the macro fis­cal and debt man­age­ment port­fo­lios of GORTT.

She is a Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tant and Fel­low of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants (FC­CA).

She is the hold­er of a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (BSc) ho­n­ours in Ap­plied Ac­count­ing from Ox­ford Brookes Uni­ver­si­ty and a Mas­ter of Sci­ence (MSc) in In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­ey, Fi­nance and In­vest­ment from Brunel Uni­ver­si­ty.

Zephyrine was ap­point­ed as the deputy chair of the TTSEC on April 25, 2016. In a no­tice on De­cem­ber 19, 2020, it was an­nounced that Zephyrine was ap­point­ed as the chair of the TTSEC.