KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell and Pan Trin­ba­go Pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore are both deny­ing there is any con­flict of in­ter­est in the rental of the steel­band body’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters.

The claim was made at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day by Sen­a­tor Wade Mark who al­leged that Mitchell is col­lect­ing rent from Pan Trin­ba­go, one of the in­ter­est groups in the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) which falls un­der his purview.

Mark, who showed copies of a deed of con­veyance to sup­port his claim, said in 2021, Dr Bruno Mitchell sold his $6.5M prop­er­ty at 55 Dun­don­ald Street to Dere Street Lim­it­ed, a com­pa­ny co-owned by Min­is­ter Mitchell and Dr Jana Marie Koy­lass.

Pan Trin­ba­go re­lo­cat­ed to the Dun­don­ald Street prop­er­ty last Au­gust. The one-year lease com­pris­es $50,000 month­ly rent for a por­tion of the build­ing and $20,000 for its car park.

“We would like to know who is pay­ing for this rental. Is it the peo­ple? Is it the tax­pay­ers? Who is cut­ting these cheques? Is it Pan Trin­ba­go, or is it the tax­pay­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

How­ev­er, Mitchell said he has nev­er col­lect­ed rent from Pan Trin­ba­go. He said Dere Street Lim­it­ed has a ten­an­cy agree­ment with a com­pa­ny called LMG Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment and Pan Trin­ba­go is a sub-ten­ant of LMG.

“The pur­chase and own­er­ship of this prop­er­ty have been con­duct­ed trans­par­ent­ly and in ac­cor­dance with all le­gal and eth­i­cal stan­dards,” he ex­plained.

“LMG is not an agent of Dere Street Lim­it­ed and does not pro­vide prop­er­ty man­age­ment ser­vices for it. There is a ten­an­cy arrange­ment be­tween Dere Street Lim­it­ed and LMG. ”

Mitchell said LMG’s de­ci­sion to sub­let to Pan Trin­ba­go was made in­de­pen­dent­ly “with­out my in­flu­ence or di­rec­tion.”

He added: “As far as I am aware, it was Pan Trin­ba­go who ap­proached LMG, hav­ing been re­ferred to them by the re­al es­tate agent who pre­vi­ous­ly had the list­ing and who was aware that LMG was seek­ing a sub­tenant. The arrange­ment be­tween LMG and Dere Street Lim­it­ed per­mits LMG to sub­let the prop­er­ty. The sub-lease be­tween LMG and Pan Trin­ba­go al­lows them to oc­cu­py the prop­er­ty for a spec­i­fied term of one year.”

Mitchell said af­ter he heard about Pan Trin­ba­go’s in­ter­est in sub­let­ting the prop­er­ty, he called Ram­sey-Moore to dis­cuss the po­ten­tial per­cep­tion of a con­flict of in­ter­est.

“I en­cour­aged her to se­cure al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion to avoid the mis­con­cep­tion,” he said.

“Pan Trin­ba­go’s pres­i­dent ex­plained that their in­ter­est in the prop­er­ty arose out of an ur­gent need to re­lo­cate be­cause of the in­ad­e­qua­cy and con­di­tion of the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s lo­ca­tion at that time. She fur­ther ex­plained that the par­tic­u­lar prop­er­ty was ide­al for their im­me­di­ate needs since it pro­vid­ed the lo­ca­tion, park­ing fa­cil­i­ties and of­fice space the or­ga­ni­za­tion re­quired at that time.

“She re­it­er­at­ed that their move was im­per­a­tive for the or­ga­ni­za­tion to con­tin­ue its vi­tal cul­tur­al work with­out dis­rup­tion. Un­der­stand­ing the unique cir­cum­stances, I ad­vised that if no suit­able al­ter­na­tive could be found with­in the time­line they had for re­lo­ca­tion, the or­ga­ni­za­tion should ap­ply their best ef­forts to seek a more per­ma­nent al­ter­na­tive lo­ca­tion with­in the term of their one-year lease.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ram­sey-Moore said she be­lieved that some­one with in­ter­est in con­test­ing the up­com­ing Pan Trin­ba­go elec­tions is try­ing to dis­cred­it her and all the work she’s done to im­prove the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

She said Pan Trin­ba­go des­per­ate­ly need­ed a big­ger space and had pre­vi­ous­ly rent­ed a much small­er build­ing, al­so lo­cat­ed in Port of Spain owned by Is­rael Khan SC for $15,000 month­ly.

“Pan Trin­ba­go’s en­gage­ment with the prop­er­ty at 55 Dun­don­ald Street is through a di­rect sub­lease agree­ment with LMG Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment, ini­ti­at­ed on Au­gust 1, 2023. This arrange­ment is for a du­ra­tion of one year, dur­ing which we will be seek­ing a more per­ma­nent lo­ca­tion,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

When the lease ends in Au­gust, she is hop­ing Pan Trin­ba­go will be able to move in­to a more per­ma­nent lo­ca­tion.