Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) iden­ti­fied The Palms vil­las as its pre­ferred op­tion, ap­proved the pur­chase of the $19 mil­lion prop­er­ty since Jan­u­ary 2024, se­cured board ap­proval, and even at­tempt­ed to source for­eign cur­ren­cy for the down pay­ment—yet the pub­lic was not for­mal­ly in­formed of the trans­ac­tion un­til a press re­lease is­sued 17 months lat­er, af­ter the prop­er­ty was pur­chased.

The Scar­bor­ough prop­er­ty is ex­pect­ed to house ex­pand­ed health ser­vices on the is­land.

TRHA and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil doc­u­ments, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, showed the de­ci­sion to pur­chase the vil­la re­sort was made by the THA and by the TRHA in Jan­u­ary 2024.

How­ev­er, when the me­dia had asked Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor about a prospec­tive vil­la pur­chase late last year, she would on­ly say dis­cus­sions with landown­ers were still “em­bry­on­ic” and no prop­er­ty had been fi­nalised. Her com­ments came un­der the TRHA and the THA came un­der fire from Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris and for­mer Health sec­re­tary Dr Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus, who both ac­cused the TRHA of with­hold­ing crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion about a ma­jor pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture.

Records show that the TRHA board ap­proved the pur­chase as far back as Jan­u­ary 29, 2024. At that meet­ing, a mo­tion was passed stat­ing: “The Board of Di­rec­tors of the TRHA… ap­proved, via a mo­tion by Chair­man, Christlyn Moore and sec­ond­ed by Di­rec­tor, Busi­ness, Mr. Nkosi Dick, the pur­chase of land and build­ings re­ferred to as the Palm’s Re­sort… to be paid in in­stal­ments over a two-year pe­ri­od (sub­ject to the ap­proval of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly).”

In April 2024, the Sec­re­tary of Health sub­mit­ted a for­mal note ask­ing the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil to ap­prove the pur­chase.

It stat­ed: “Ac­cord­ing­ly, the Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion rec­om­mends and the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil is asked to agree to: The Pur­chase of the Palms… at and for a cost of $2.5 mil­lion US.”

How­ev­er, the doc­u­ment doesn’t say whether that ap­proval was ac­tu­al­ly grant­ed at that time. The on­ly con­fir­ma­tion came much lat­er, when the TRHA con­firmed the ac­qui­si­tion of the prop­er­ty on Fri­day, via a me­dia re­lease: “This in­vest­ment by the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil through the Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion sup­ports the TRHA’s com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing To­ba­go’s health in­fra­struc­ture…”

The Agree­ment of Sale was signed on May 25, 2025, and the TRHA an­nounced it would be­gin oc­cu­py­ing the site from yes­ter­day.

And dur­ing the time be­fore an­nounc­ing its in­tent to pur­chase, the THA faced forex chal­lenges. The au­thor­i­ty ini­tial­ly tried to se­cure US$250,000 (TT$1.7 mil­lion) for a down pay­ment on the prop­er­ty but en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ty in do­ing so.

While the TRHA’s rea­son was not stat­ed, an email from TRHA chair­man Christlyn Moore to Stud­ley Park En­ter­prise Lim­it­ed (SPEL) chair­man Ash­worth Jack on Ju­ly 11, 2024, de­mand­ed the re­turn of TT$1.8 mil­lion be­ing held in trust to ac­com­mo­date the trans­ac­tion.

“As you are aware, SPEL holds some 1.8M TTD on trust for the TRHA. On the ad­vice of our lawyers, SPEL is not able to as­sist the TRHA by trans­fer­ring the equiv­a­lent in USD to fa­cil­i­tate the pur­chase of our equip­ment. In these cir­cum­stances, the TRHA re­quires that these sums be IM­ME­DI­ATE­LY re­mit­ted to the TRHA,” the email, which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained, stat­ed.

At that time, this amount would have been con­vert­ed from TT dol­lars to ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$265,000— co­in­ci­den­tal­ly or not, enough for the down pay­ment for the prop­er­ty.

An email thread, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, showed that TRHA chair­man Moore de­mand­ed SPEL re­turn TT$1.8 mil­lion to the TRHA.

The at­tempt to se­cure forex through SPEL sparked le­gal con­cerns about com­pli­ance with the Ex­change Con­trol Act, which lim­its for­eign cur­ren­cy trans­ac­tions to au­tho­rised deal­ers.

The TRHA had orig­i­nal­ly sent the mon­ey to SPEL to be held in trust. SPEL is a spe­cial-pur­pose com­pa­ny set up to man­age and over­see the op­er­a­tions of the Stud­ley Park Quar­ry. It is owned by the THA.

The TRHA is giv­en the pow­er by the THA to over­see the ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and all health cen­tres lo­cat­ed through­out To­ba­go.

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to con­firm whether the mon­ey was re­turned to the TRHA in TT dol­lars or suc­cess­ful­ly trans­ferred in US dol­lars.

Mean­while, there are al­so now ques­tions, fol­low­ing the TRHA’s trou­ble ob­tain­ing the nec­es­sary US cur­ren­cy for a down pay­ment, whether the au­thor­i­ty has en­tered in­to a new fi­nan­cial agree­ment or has re­struc­tured a pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed fi­nan­cial deal.

On Fri­day, the TRHA’s re­lease stat­ed that the US$2.5 mil­lion pur­chase of the prop­er­ty is to be paid over 50 months.

How­ev­er, a THA Ex­ec­u­tive note in April stat­ed, “The Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion rec­om­mends, and the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil is asked to agree, to the Pur­chase of the Palms… at and for a cost of US$2.5 mil­lion to be paid in in­stal­ments over a two-year pe­ri­od.”

It al­so men­tioned a plan to fi­nance the pur­chase via a loan with First Cit­i­zens bank with an ex­pect­ed in­ter­est rate of 10 per cent.

Ac­cord­ing to the EC note, which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained, the loan would have re­quired month­ly in­stal­ments of ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$726,000.

The note said the in­stal­ments would have been cov­ered us­ing the TRHA’s re­cur­rent sub­ven­tions from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, es­ti­mat­ed at TT$42 mil­lion per month.

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader de­mands an­swers

Mean­while, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is de­mand­ing an­swers over the TRHA pur­chase of the Palms Vil­las for more than US$2.5 mil­lion, call­ing the deal a se­ri­ous breach of pub­lic trust.

Fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment on Fri­day, Mor­ris told the me­dia the up­front pay­ment alone rais­es red flags, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the lack of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and the ab­sence of a trans­par­ent process.

“At a time when our hos­pi­tals are starved of ba­sic equip­ment, pa­tients strug­gle to ac­cess life-sav­ing med­i­cine, and health­care work­ers op­er­ate with lim­it­ed re­sources—one must ask: is this the most pru­dent use of pub­lic funds?” Mor­ris asked.

He ques­tioned whether the prop­er­ty was prop­er­ly val­ued, who au­tho­rised the forex pay­ment, what pro­cure­ment steps were tak­en, and why the THA didn’t use one of its many state-owned prop­er­ties.

“This is not just about a prop­er­ty deal—it’s about trans­paren­cy, val­ue for mon­ey, and mis­man­age­ment of To­ba­go’s al­ready lim­it­ed health bud­get,” he said.

Mor­ris said with­out full dis­clo­sure, the ac­qui­si­tion re­mains sus­pi­cious and he in­tends to keep press­ing for the truth.

The prop­er­ty

The Palms Vil­la, a ren­o­vat­ed re­sort with five ful­ly fur­nished three-bed­room vil­las, a man­ag­er’s house, and an of­fice, was list­ed for sale on­line at an ask­ing price of TT$19 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to TRHA doc­u­ments, the re­sort was cho­sen be­cause it could be used to house the Child and Ado­les­cent Cen­tre, the Blue Room – Men’s Health Clin­ic, the Health Pro­mo­tion Clin­ic, the On­col­o­gy Unit, and the Stroke and Di­a­betes Cen­tre “with min­i­mum to no al­ter­ations.”

The note al­so warned that if the TRHA did not pur­chase the en­tire com­pound, the re­sort might be di­vid­ed and sold to oth­er pri­vate in­ter­ests.

“It would not be ad­van­ta­geous for the Palms to be sub­di­vid­ed and one own­er in­stalls a night­club or some oth­er busi­ness that has a dele­te­ri­ous ef­fect on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Hos­pi­tal and the de­liv­ery of Hos­pi­tal ser­vices,” the note stat­ed.

The doc­u­ment not­ed that the Palms land is al­so suit­able for re­lo­cat­ing the in­cin­er­a­tor and oth­er crit­i­cal hos­pi­tal in­fra­struc­ture, re­duc­ing the need for trans­port­ing bio­haz­ard waste to Fort King George in the fu­ture.

The TRHA plans to re­lo­cate the fol­low­ing ser­vices from the Old Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal site to the new Palms Vil­la lo­ca­tion:

• The Child and Ado­les­cent Cen­tre

• The Blue Room – Men’s Health Clin­ic

• The Health Pro­mo­tion Clin­ic

• On­col­o­gy Unit

• Stroke and Di­a­betes Cen­tre

• To­ba­go Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices Base

• Iso­la­tion and In­fec­tious Dis­ease Ward

• Six-Bed ICU

• In­cin­er­a­tor/Bio­haz­ard Waste

• Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness Stor­age

The Old Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal will soon be used for tourism ini­tia­tives.

The re­ject­ed op­tions

The Fri­day Lands prop­er­ty, priced at US$7 mil­lion with no built-up struc­tures and a his­to­ry of flood­ing, was re­ject­ed, ac­cord­ing to the EC note.

The note com­pared the cost and us­abil­i­ty of the site with The Palms, point­ing out that Fri­day Lands is on­ly 1/8th the size of The Palms but more than twice as ex­pen­sive per square me­ter.

It would have al­so re­quired con­struc­tion from scratch.

The EC note al­so men­tioned a third re­ject­ed op­tion—un­de­vel­oped land north­east of the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which was on the open mar­ket. Al­though the land was larg­er than the Fri­day Lands, it said it lacked in­fra­struc­ture and re­quired sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment to be­come us­able.

The TRHA dis­missed this op­tion be­cause The Palms al­ready had five ful­ly con­struct­ed and fur­nished build­ings that could be oc­cu­pied im­me­di­ate­ly, mak­ing it a more cost-ef­fec­tive and prac­ti­cal so­lu­tion for ur­gent re­lo­ca­tion.

As of ear­ly 2024, the TRHA re­port­ed­ly had a $7.1 mil­lion sur­plus and $61.1 mil­lion in cash, al­low­ing it to ab­sorb the vil­la pur­chase cost and ini­tial pay­ment with ease. The EC note showed the TRHA had a cur­rent ra­tio of 1.5, mean­ing its cur­rent as­sets were 1.5 times greater than its li­a­bil­i­ties. This was pre­sent­ed as proof that the au­thor­i­ty was fi­nan­cial­ly sta­ble enough to take on the pur­chase. At­tempts to reach Health Sec­re­tary Breb­nor, TRHA chair­man Moore and cur­rent CEO Dr Del­mond Bak­er via calls and text mes­sages went unan­swered. Mes­sages were al­so not re­turned up to press time yes­ter­day.