DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

There’s a tar­get on the back of Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, as debt col­lec­tors are search­ing for him as they seek to re­cov­er over $600,000 owed by him to one of their clients.

Dr Mooni­lal yes­ter­day con­ced­ed that the out­stand­ing fig­ure was in­deed owed. How­ev­er, he said the dis­put­ed funds are linked to a ship­ment of flood-re­lief items re­ceived from an in­ter­na­tion­al church which he had been seek­ing to get a tax ex­emp­tion on.

Last Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia ob­served two debt col­lec­tors from Cred­it Chex Lim­it­ed (CCL) stand­ing near Wood­ford Square, oblique­ly op­po­site the Red House, as Par­lia­ment de­bat­ed the ap­point­ments of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin to Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Curt Si­mon to Act­ing DCP.

The debt col­lec­tors left when ap­proached but sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed they were stak­ing out Dr Mooni­lal, who is ac­cused of ow­ing a sum of $681,146.47 to one of their clients.

Ac­cord­ing to CCL, their ser­vices were con­tract­ed on No­vem­ber 24, 2024, af­ter Mooni­lal failed to pay for im­port­ed goods that ar­rived in Jan­u­ary 2023. The items have re­mained strand­ed at the Point Lisas Port since.

CCL sources claim that re­peat­ed at­tempts to con­tact Mooni­lal via phone calls to his of­fice and couri­ered let­ters were un­suc­cess­ful in get­ting re­spons­es from him. Let­ters were sent on No­vem­ber 25, 2024; Jan­u­ary 9, 2025; Jan­u­ary 29, 2025; and Feb­ru­ary 5, 2025 (hand-de­liv­ery at­tempt). All cor­re­spon­dence was re­port­ed­ly re­turned, and Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that calls were not for­ward­ed by the MP’s staff.

In re­spons­es to the is­sue sent via What­sApp, Mooni­lal in­sist­ed the ship­ment was not for per­son­al use but was meant for flood-re­lief ef­forts.

“I was try­ing to help a church im­port sup­plies for the poor and des­ti­tute. Sev­er­al promis­es from Cus­toms and the Min­istry of Fi­nance to as­sist went un­ful­filled. This has ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with me per­son­al­ly—just a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ef­fort.”

He added that the items were shipped to T&T free of charge by Christ-Cen­tered Min­istry, My Sea Hope Inc., an or­gan­i­sa­tion that, ac­cord­ing to its web­site, aims to pro­vide for the spir­i­tu­al and phys­i­cal needs of peo­ple through­out the Caribbean.

In a let­ter dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 2, 2023, ad­dressed to the Di­rec­tor of Bud­gets, Mooni­lal for­mal­ly re­quest­ed tax and du­ty ex­emp­tions for the ship­ment. He stat­ed that the items were a gift ful­ly paid for by the ship­per.

The ship­ment was val­ued at $270,322.99, with du­ties and tax­es amount­ing to $89,344.28, as per doc­u­ments pro­vid­ed by Mooni­lal.

The con­tents in­clud­ed new and used cloth­ing, shoes, beds, linens, mos­qui­to net­ting, hy­giene kits, and ap­pli­ances, all in­tend­ed for free dis­tri­b­u­tion to fam­i­lies in need.

“These items were do­nat­ed to My Sea Hope Inc. free of charge and are meant to be dis­trib­uted free of charge to needy mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty,” Mooni­lal wrote in his re­quest let­ter.

When asked whether he had re­ceived a re­sponse from the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mooni­lal yes­ter­day in­di­cat­ed that ef­forts were on­go­ing.

“I have been try­ing for years to help the church. The Min­istry of Fi­nance is do­ing its best, but there are rules, poli­cies, and laws that we can­not vi­o­late.”

Mean­while, CCL man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Bran­don de Mon­trichard has urged Mooni­lal to con­tact them to re­solve the mat­ter.

As for his next steps, Mooni­lal yes­ter­day said blunt­ly, “I plan to beg for help.”