At the post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Red House on May 15, 2025, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar man­dat­ed three of her min­is­ters—Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dra­dath Tan­coo, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Dr. Kennedy Swarats­ingh and Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma “Ka­ma” Ma­haraj—to pro­duce a re­port on forex dis­tri­b­u­tion and leak­ages over the past 10 years.

In out­lin­ing what she ex­pect­ed in that re­port, the T&T Prime Min­is­ter said:

“So one is a dis­tri­b­u­tion, but there is al­so the leak­age, and this is a se­ri­ous mat­ter. Again, one of the cries we heard in the coun­try was about the is­sue of forex, so we need to know where the forex went, to whom it went, why it went, how it went, and how it was de­ployed, how it was used.

“Those re­ports will come to us, and we will share them with you. Then this re­port, as I say, will be made pub­lic to iden­ti­fy the main users, the main fa­cil­i­ta­tors of this un­fair dis­tri­b­u­tion, and ex­plain to the pub­lic how this en­tire forex dis­tri­b­u­tion car­tel and con­spir­a­cy be­tween cer­tain op­er­a­tives and busi­ness­es was func­tion­ing.”

On Sep­tem­ber 4, 2025, Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai held what was de­scribed as a me­dia en­gage­ment at the Cen­tral Bank. The first ques­tion he was asked came from Ria Taitt, the re­tired se­nior po­lit­i­cal ed­i­tor at the Trinidad Ex­press. Ms Taitt asked, “Can I start off by ask­ing the sim­ple ques­tion of whether or not there is, in fact, a for­eign ex­change car­tel (in T&T), or is that a sen­sa­tion­al term that peo­ple use in or­der to rev up the pop­u­la­tion on this for­eign ex­change is­sue?”

Mr Howai’s re­spond­ed by say­ing, “From our per­spec­tive, we have no ev­i­dence that would sug­gest that there is a car­tel. I have been told that there is a black mar­ket some­where out there. The ex­tent of that black mar­ket, how per­va­sive it is, I have no re­al da­ta on that right now. I am un­able to say whether that is so or not...”

So, Mr Howai—who was ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for a five-year term on June 24, 2025—tells the world on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2025, that the Cen­tral Bank has no ev­i­dence of the ex­is­tence of a for­eign ex­change car­tel in T&T. At the very least, that is a dis­agree­ment with the com­ment that the T&T Prime Min­is­ter made on May 15.

Then, on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2025, the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ex­im­bank) re­leased lists of man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­porters of es­sen­tial goods and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals that re­ceived for­eign ex­change from the bank.

The da­ta from Ex­im­bank re­vealed that from 2020 to mid-2025, it dis­trib­uted US$1.4 bil­lion in forex to 123 com­pa­nies un­der its es­sen­tial win­dow.

Some of the com­pa­nies that were al­lo­cat­ed forex by the Ex­im­bank from 2020 to June 30, 2025 in­clud­ed:

* Arawak and Com­pa­ny Ltd with US$76,203,000;

* Nu­trim­ix, US$78,503,000;

* Smith Robert­son and Com­pa­ny Ltd, now Aven­ta T&T (part of the Agos­ti­ni group), US$100,184,273;

* Prices­mart Clubs T&T, US$44,304,618;

* Bry­den PI Ltd, US$29,283,000;

* Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics Ltd, US$51,804,321; and

* Vem­co (a di­vi­sion of CDP Trinidad Lim­it­ed, now Aca­do), US$19,356,203.

Some of the oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies that re­ceived for­eign ex­change from the Ex­im­bank for the pe­ri­od in­clud­ed:

* Caribbean Bot­tlers, US$41,845,360;

* Had­co Hold­ings Ltd, US$21,356,231;

* Nes­tle, US$23,728,083; and

* ANSA Coat­ings, US$19,382,381.

As a fol­low-up to the Ex­im­bank’s rev­e­la­tions, Guardian Me­dia Ltd’s lead ed­i­tor, pol­i­tics, Akash Sama­roo, sent the Prime Min­is­ter ques­tions on the for­eign ex­change is­sue. These ques­tions in­clud­ed:

* Do you think it is time for the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­lease the full list of for­eign ex­change users? and

* Do you think the Ex­im­bank should re­move es­sen­tial goods from its client list and stick on­ly to man­u­fac­tur­ers who ex­port?

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to those ques­tions was,”There are tens of thou­sands of busi­ness­es in our coun­try, but many are ground­ed in­to fail­ure and bank­rupt­cy by the car­tels at bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions. It’s clear that the man­age­ment at Ex­im­bank has failed to func­tion prop­er­ly and fair­ly. These forex car­tels at the com­mer­cial banks are even worse than at the Ex­im­bank.

“For greater trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, we will pro­pose leg­is­la­tion in the Par­lia­ment to make the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go legal­ly dis­close to the pub­lic the forex al­lo­ca­tions. This will ex­pose the forex car­tels and show cit­i­zens how the banks have worked to crush SME’s and con­cen­trate wealth in the hands of a few peo­ple.”

Asked by Mr Sama­roo how soon she ex­pect­ed the leg­is­la­tion to ex­pose the forex car­tels would be brought to Par­lia­ment, Mrs Per­sad Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing on the leg­is­la­tion and she ex­pect­ed it to be tabled in 2025. The leg­is­la­tion was not brought to Par­lia­ment in 2025, as the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed.

Asked by GML’s lead ed­i­tor, pol­i­tics, if the leg­is­la­tion would com­pel lo­cal com­mer­cial banks to tell the Gov­ern­ment how it dis­trib­utes for­eign ex­change, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed, “The leg­is­la­tion is sole­ly aimed at pro­vid­ing pub­lic trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of forex.”

And then, on the evening of June 11—sup­port­ing com­ments made the day be­fore in Par­lia­ment by her At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, John Je­re­mie—the T&T Prime Min­is­ter, or one of her sur­ro­gates, wrote on Face­book:

“...The state is get­ting for­eign as­sis­tance to track bil­lions of US dol­lars that have been sent out of the coun­try over the last 20 years.

“Some cur­rent and for­mer high-rank­ing of­fi­cials of lo­cal banks fa­cil­i­tat­ed the sale of mas­sive amounts of for­eign cur­ren­cy to lo­cal busi­ness­es, which was then trans­ferred to for­eign ac­counts linked to car­tels and al­so used to pur­chase re­al es­tate hold­ings and busi­ness­es in col­lab­o­ra­tion with car­tels.

“Bil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of il­le­gal drugs have passed through this coun­try over the last 25 years and no one can an­swer how it was paid for. The state is fi­nal­ly get­ting as­sis­tance to deal with drug traf­fick­ing and mon­ey laun­der­ing and we will let the chips fall where they may. All law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear from the ac­tions of the US and lo­cal law en­force­ment agen­cies.”

The al­le­ga­tion by the T&T Prime Min­is­ter that se­nior bankers in T&T, both past and present, “fa­cil­i­tat­ed the sale of mas­sive amounts of for­eign cur­ren­cy to lo­cal busi­ness­es, which was then trans­ferred to for­eign ac­counts linked to car­tels and al­so used to pur­chase re­al es­tate hold­ings and busi­ness­es in col­lab­o­ra­tion with car­tels,” is ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous.

If it is true that se­nior bankers in T&T fa­cil­i­tat­ed the sale of “mas­sive amounts of for­eign cur­ren­cy” to lo­cal busi­ness­es, which was then trans­ferred to for­eign ac­counts “linked to car­tels,” that has the abil­i­ty to crip­ple the bank­ing sys­tem in this coun­try. That is be­cause, if Mrs Per­sad Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion is true, the T&T bank­ing sys­tem, mean­ing all of the banks in this coun­try, could be de-risked, in that glob­al banks would ter­mi­nate or re­strict their cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing re­la­tion­ships (CBRs) with lo­cal banks.

As all T&T banks re­ly on cor­re­spon­dent banks to clear for­eign cur­ren­cy trans­ac­tions, both go­ing out and com­ing in, de-risk­ing would, in ef­fect, pre­vent T&T banks from pro­cess­ing in­ter­na­tion­al wire trans­fers. That would pre­vent im­porters from bring­ing in flour, rice, pas­ta and thou­sands of oth­er items, as well as im­pact­ing the abil­i­ty of for­eign com­pa­nies to repa­tri­ate div­i­dends.

Of course, if the Prime Min­is­ter’s Face­book post is sim­ply un­true or a gross ex­ag­ger­a­tion, then our ho­n­ourable leader would have de­famed scores of for­mer and cur­rent se­nior bankers and placed the coun­try’s econ­o­my in se­ri­ous and po­ten­tial­ly ter­mi­nal jeop­ardy.

Ques­tions

1) What has be­come of the forex dis­tri­b­u­tion and leak­age re­port that three min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment were man­dat­ed to pro­duce?

2) Will the Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad Bisses­sar pro­vide an up­date on the re­port?

3) Is the leg­is­la­tion to make the Cen­tral Bank legal­ly dis­close forex al­lo­ca­tions dead in the wa­ter?

4) Where is the ev­i­dence that SMEs in this coun­try are “ground­ed in­to fail­ure and bank­rupt­cy by the car­tels,” who pre­fer to sell for­eign ex­change to large com­pa­nies?

5) If Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has a scin­til­la of proof that lo­cal busi­ness­peo­ple have links to (drug?) car­tels fa­cil­i­tat­ed by se­nior bankers, would she be pre­pared to share it with the pop­u­la­tion?

6) Why has the lo­cal as­so­ci­a­tion of bankers not re­spond­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter?