SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI and

JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

At 65, when many are prepar­ing to close the chap­ter on their work­ing lives, Jear­lean John has writ­ten a new one—step­ping in­to the na­tion’s high­est of­fice as Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence.

Once fac­ing an un­cer­tain po­lit­i­cal fu­ture af­ter her de­feat in the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro seat to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Fos­ter Cum­mings in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, John made a come­back five years lat­er in Cou­va North, the sym­bol­ic heart­land seat once held by UNC founder and for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

“JJ”, as she is fond­ly called, won the seat with 13,201 votes to the PNM’s 3,094 and now rep­re­sents 30,681 mem­bers of the elec­torate and their fam­i­lies in Par­lia­ment, a vic­to­ry that furter ce­ment­ed her in­flu­ence with­in the par­ty.

John had al­ready es­tab­lished her­self with­in the UNC as a key fig­ure through her ap­point­ments as a tem­po­rary op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 2018, then a full-time sen­a­tor, even­tu­al­ly be­ing named one of the par­ty’s deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers. Her 2025 elec­tion vic­to­ry and rep­u­ta­tion as a tire­less ‘work­horse’ in pol­i­tics and pub­lic ser­vice have now car­ried her to the pin­na­cle of her ca­reer.

'No sil­ver spoons'

The Char­lot­teville-born John, who grew up in hum­ble be­gin­nings “with no sil­ver spoons or ear­ly men­tors”, has one child, a daugh­ter.

Now, this coun­try’s Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, John, a char­tered ac­coun­tant, holds an MBA from the Ed­in­burgh Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness and a Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Train­ing Cer­tifi­cate from the Na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Sin­ga­pore.

She is no stranger to suc­cess, with over 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence serv­ing in ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

She pre­vi­ous­ly served as the Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), Chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott), Di­rec­tor of the Ve­hi­cle Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (VM­COTT), CEO of the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC), Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Man­ag­er of UWI St Au­gus­tine, Min­is­ter of Trans­port, and Min­is­ter of Tourism and To­ba­go Af­fairs.

Her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer be­gan un­der for­mer PM Pan­day, who ap­point­ed her Min­is­ter of Trans­port, Min­is­ter of Tourism and To­ba­go Af­fairs, and a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor.

Po­lit­i­cal come­back and ris­ing in­flu­ence

As she so­lid­i­fied her po­si­tion as one of the par­ty’s lead­ing fig­ures, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith ques­tioned Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s loy­al­ty to John amid a spat with the To­bag­on­ian. Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned Grif­fith to leave John alone.

“Why does Jear­lean John ap­par­ent­ly have so much in­flu­ence over you and the UNC? How does she get to de­cide whether or not you have a di­a­logue with oth­er par­ties? When did you be­come like the PNM and de­cide to win alone or lose alone? Are you yet again plan­ning to lose alone a third time?” Grif­fith ques­tioned in a let­ter to Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“What is it with Jear­lean John that you would be so bold as to open­ly at­tack an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal leader in pub­lic, es­pe­cial­ly one that you pre­vi­ous­ly had an al­liance with, when you have some­thing known as a mo­bile phone, where­by you could sim­ply con­tact me if you have any con­cern?”

Fol­low­ing this, talks be­tween the NTA and the UNC for a pos­si­ble coali­tion ahead of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion col­lapsed.

Cor­rup­tion watch­dog

Act­ing as a vig­i­lant watch­dog against cor­rup­tion, John ex­posed ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the Pi­ar­co Air­port Project.

While sev­er­al gov­ern­ment fig­ures faced heavy crit­i­cism for their roles in the Pi­ar­co Air­port Project, John, who re­placed Sadiq Baksh as Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, was sin­gled out for praise in the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry Re­port as a “very con­vinc­ing, help­ful and ef­fec­tive wit­ness”.

Join­ing the project late, she iden­ti­fied and re­port­ed to Pan­day the greed, mad­ness and mis­man­age­ment in­volv­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­sist­ing that all works be sub­ject­ed to pub­lic ten­der.

“Ac­cord­ing to her, she was not at all hap­py about what had tran­spired at the meet­ing (ad hoc min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee); so af­ter this meet­ing, she and then Fi­nance Min­is­ter Ger­ald Yet­ming, who re­placed Bri­an Kuei Tung, who al­so at­tend­ed, had de­cid­ed not to take any fur­ther part in the de­lib­er­a­tions of this body again … She nev­er did there­after,” the re­port stat­ed.

“In the com­mis­sion’s opin­ion, were it not for the res­olute de­ter­mi­na­tion and firm re­solve of this new­ly ap­point­ed line min­is­ter, the ‘feed­ing and milch­ing’ would have con­tin­ued un­abat­ed,” it added, stat­ing the coun­try owes her a pro­found sense of grat­i­tude.

Swap­ping stilet­tos for con­struc­tion boots

Known for her tire­less work eth­ic, John was ap­point­ed Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the HDC un­der the Patrick Man­ning PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion and re­tained the role un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment led by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. “I am not a showhorse. I am a work­horse. And I would not bring pol­i­tics in­to this. I am just here to do the job,” she said up­on be­ing hired.

In her cur­rent role, John works di­rect­ly with her team, vis­it­ing job sites, over­see­ing paving projects, and chair­ing tech­ni­cal meet­ings—swap­ping stilet­tos for con­struc­tion boots and a hard hat to get the job done from sun­rise to sun­set.

Ca­reer Con­tro­ver­sy

* John, how­ev­er, has al­so been the sub­ject of con­tro­ver­sy.

In 2011, she was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion (IC) for an undis­closed mat­ter, as con­firmed by for­mer Com­mis­sion Chair­man Er­ic St Cyr. She de­nied any wrong­do­ing, call­ing for St Cyr to re­sign af­ter he con­firmed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to a lo­cal news­pa­per be­fore she was for­mal­ly in­formed. Sub­se­quent­ly, Dr St Cyr re­signed on Oc­to­ber 11, 2011, cit­ing per­son­al rea­sons. John ex­pressed feel­ing “vin­di­cat­ed” but de­mand­ed a full ex­pla­na­tion from him re­gard­ing his de­ci­sion. No charges were brought against John.

* Two years lat­er, in 2013, then op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­cused her of al­leged­ly be­ing in­volved in an HDC rack­et. Re­fer­ring the mat­ter to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Dr Row­ley claimed that HDC pro­cured 50 acres of land, called Eden Gar­dens in Freeport, for more than $120 mil­lion of its val­ue.

Less than a year af­ter Lin­den Scott and As­so­ciates val­ued the prop­er­ty at $52 mil­lion, Dr Row­ley claimed the Cab­i­net ap­proved spend­ing $175 mil­lion for it from Point Lisas Park in 2012. He al­leged it was orig­i­nal­ly sold to “a gov­ern­ment friend” for $5 mil­lion in 2010. In 2012, the HDC board asked Com­mis­sion­er of Val­u­a­tions Ronald Heer­alal to per­form an in­de­pen­dent val­u­a­tion. He val­ued the prop­er­ty at $180 mil­lion, say­ing it had been “gross­ly un­der­stat­ed” by Lin­den Scott and As­so­ciates.

* Af­ter Dr Row­ley’s PNM oust­ed the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship in 2015, John was ini­tial­ly sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave by HDC be­fore be­ing fired for al­leged ‘dis­re­spect­ful be­hav­iour’ dur­ing a March 2016 board meet­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the then-HDC chair­man, New­man George, she was dis­re­spect­ful in her re­spons­es to ques­tions about two high-end ve­hi­cles that were leased for her.

She had served as HDC Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor since 2009. John sued the State for wrong­ful dis­missal. In her law­suit, John sought $7.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion, $5 mil­lion for dam­age to her rep­u­ta­tion, and $1.42 mil­lion for the eight and a half months she had left on her con­tract when she was fired. She al­so asked for an ad­di­tion­al 24 months’ salary, which, she said, was the es­tab­lished prac­tice at the HDC for de­part­ing man­ag­ing di­rec­tors.

John was paid a $62,000 salary and $36,000 in trav­el, hous­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and en­ter­tain­ment al­lowances. The case, how­ev­er, was thrown out by Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran.

* In 2016, John, among sev­er­al di­rec­tors, was named in a State-filed law­suit al­leg­ing fraud in the Eden Gar­dens mat­ter. In 2018, the High Court struck out the case, re­fus­ing to grant the State fur­ther ex­ten­sions to file its full claim, cit­ing de­lays in serv­ing the law­suit and in­suf­fi­cient grounds for se­cre­cy. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al lat­er re­filed the case, which is re­port­ed to be still pend­ing.

* In De­cem­ber 2020, as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor, John was forced to apol­o­gise to avoid be­ing re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee af­ter crit­i­cis­ing for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Dr Maria Dil­lon-Re­my’s sup­port of the PNM’s Pro­cure­ment Bill, la­belling the act, among oth­er things, “a shame and a dis­grace”.

In re­sponse, John is­sued a per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion in the Sen­ate, stat­ing that she meant no harm and was mere­ly re­flect­ing pub­lic con­cern. She apol­o­gised to Dil­lon-Re­my and Sen­ate mem­bers. Then-Sen­ate pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ac­cept­ed the ex­pla­na­tion and ruled that no fur­ther ac­tion would be tak­en.

A What­sApp mes­sage was sent to John on Thurs­day, but she did not re­spond.