Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

For more than six decades, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety (TTRCS) has stood as a sym­bol of hu­man­i­tar­i­an strength, de­liv­er­ing vi­tal sup­port through its dis­as­ter re­sponse, mi­gra­tion as­sis­tance, and First Aid pro­grammes.

How­ev­er, a mis­sion re­port by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Red Cross (IFRC), con­duct­ed in De­cem­ber 2024, high­light­ed is­sues with­in the TTRCS, in­clud­ing mis­man­age­ment, poor fi­nan­cial over­sight, and break­downs in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and gov­er­nance.

The fall­out be­gan pub­licly in Oc­to­ber, when anony­mous fly­ers plas­tered across the Port-of-Spain com­pound called for its pres­i­dent Jill De Bourg’s re­moval. The fly­ers read: “We had giv­en you a chance to be our TTRCS pres­i­dent to bring bet­ter­ment to the so­ci­ety, not to bring it apart.”

A po­lice re­port was filed on the in­ci­dent, but no ar­rests were made.

The fol­low­ing month, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MS­DFS) tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed its $730,000 an­nu­al sub­ven­tion. While the TTRCS at­trib­uted the cut to out­stand­ing au­dits dat­ing back to 2011, then min­is­ter Don­na Cox said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was non-com­pli­ant in “some ar­eas”.

The min­istry said, how­ev­er, it re­mained com­mit­ted to work­ing with the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“While the min­istry is not in­volved in the dai­ly man­age­ment of the sub­vent­ed NGOs un­der its purview, there is an ex­pec­ta­tion of the ap­pli­ca­tion of the prin­ci­ples of mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing, fair­ness, eq­ui­ty, and equal­i­ty with­in these en­vi­ron­ments. Me­di­a­tion of is­sues can be a vi­able op­tion in ad­dress­ing work­place chal­lenges and has proven suc­cess­ful in the past, where the min­istry would have re­ferred oth­er NGOs to me­di­a­tion,” the email from the min­istry stat­ed.

To mit­i­gate fur­ther fall­out, the IFRC head­quar­ters in Gene­va, Switzer­land, in­ter­vened, send­ing Harold Brooks, for­mer VP of the Amer­i­can Red Cross, and Dr Jaslin Salmon, for­mer pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Red Cross, to con­duct a five-day as­sess­ment mis­sion be­gin­ning De­cem­ber 16.

Their in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed a dys­func­tion­al TTRCS, marked by on­go­ing con­flict with the na­tion­al lead­er­ship, which led to con­fu­sion, low staff morale, and the col­lapse of sev­er­al branch­es.

The as­sess­ment high­light­ed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with lead­er­ship. The pro­longed ab­sence of a CEO had cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty and dis­or­der. Branch­es in the North, South, and To­ba­go were ei­ther non-func­tion­al or bare­ly op­er­a­tional, weak­ened by ex­ces­sive cen­tral con­trol.

They al­so found gov­er­nance is­sues, with no elec­tions held since 2018, the coun­cil in­ac­tive since 2022, and the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing spo­rad­i­cal­ly.

The mis­sion team urged the im­me­di­ate hir­ing of a di­rec­tor gen­er­al—ide­al­ly an in­ter­im ap­pointee fund­ed by the IFRC for six months—along­side swift elec­tions over­seen by an ap­point­ed elec­tion com­mit­tee and re­turn­ing of­fi­cer.

The re­port al­so called for the re­ac­ti­va­tion of branch­es with elect­ed lead­ers and the re­turn of con­fis­cat­ed funds to the re­spec­tive branch­es.

While no fraud was de­tect­ed, the ab­sence of au­dits since 2011 raised se­ri­ous con­cerns. In­ves­ti­ga­tors rec­om­mend­ed ur­gent au­dit com­ple­tion, re­cruit­ment of qual­i­fied ac­count­ing staff, a full re­view of fi­nan­cial pro­ce­dures, and that any deep­er probe be un­der­tak­en by new lead­er­ship.

They al­so stressed the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing neg­a­tive me­dia cov­er­age with ur­gency.

The mis­sion in end­ing its re­port rec­om­mend­ed that the team be au­tho­rised to re­turn to T&T to present its find­ings to the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, as well as to ini­ti­ate and over­see the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the ac­tion plan.

The IFRC re­port was re­ceived by TTRCS in April 2025.

What was re­port­ed

to in­ves­ti­ga­tors

Ahead of their vis­it, the IFRC in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­viewed key doc­u­ments, in­clud­ing the TTRCS law, 2004 statutes, em­ploy­ee re­ports, a let­ter from the Elec­tion Com­mit­tee to the pres­i­dent, and a draft con­sti­tu­tion. The ICRC/IFRC’s Joint Statutes Com­mis­sion strong­ly urged a re­vi­sion of this con­sti­tu­tion. Over five days, the pair in­ter­viewed 30 stake­hold­ers.

Salmon and Brooks cat­e­gorised their find­ings un­der Gov­er­nance, Elec­tions, Branch­es, Man­age­ment, Fi­nance, Me­dia Re­la­tions, and the ex­pe­ri­ences of Staff, Mem­bers, and Vol­un­teers.

Lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance

Pres­i­dent De Bourg ac­knowl­edged that elec­tions had not tak­en place since 2018, blam­ing the de­lay on await­ing new statutes. She at­trib­uted the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s tur­moil to “ma­li­cious” staff and vol­un­teers and ad­mit­ted the North and South branch­es were in­ac­tive, with To­ba­go bare­ly op­er­a­tional.

She de­scribed the in­ter­nal en­vi­ron­ment as “tox­ic due to back­bit­ing”, and claimed many prob­lems were in­her­it­ed.

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of­fered mixed views. While Anne Marie Quam­mie-Al­leyne said the Gov­ern­ment’s fund­ing cut main­ly af­fect­ed salaries, Nigel Williams at­trib­uted the au­dit de­lays to pres­i­den­tial in­ac­tion. All three agreed elec­tions were ur­gent­ly need­ed.

For­mer vice pres­i­dent Delia Cha­toor cit­ed sev­er­al con­cerns prompt­ing her res­ig­na­tion: be­ing asked to sign un­ex­plained cheques, ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the 2018 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and De Bourg’s uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions. She al­so not­ed De Bourg had tak­en on the di­rec­tor gen­er­al’s role af­ter failed re­cruit­ment ef­forts.

Le­gal ad­vis­er Solange De­venish, how­ev­er, said the di­rec­tor gen­er­al va­can­cy stemmed from cost con­cerns.

Branch dys­func­tion and con­trol

Mul­ti­ple sources con­firmed dys­func­tion across all three branch­es. Cindy-Ann Badaloo, Di­rec­tor of Health, cit­ed vol­un­teer short­ages in the North. To­ba­go Chair Frank Camp­bell said all branch­es were ef­fec­tive­ly “un­der­mined” by the lead­er­ship, cit­ing cen­tralised con­trol and un­sanc­tioned fund trans­fers.

Fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional con­cerns

Trea­sur­er Mar­cus Simms de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s with­draw­al of fund­ing as ex­pect­ed, point­ing to a 2023 warn­ing let­ter. He blamed fi­nan­cial in­sta­bil­i­ty on mis­man­age­ment rather than fraud. Ini­tial­ly, au­dits cov­er­ing 2012–2022 were to be done over three years, but af­ter de­lays, ef­forts shift­ed to start in 2019, with a con­sul­tant brought in.

Vol­un­teer and staff per­spec­tives

Youth Di­rec­tor Si­mone Haynes-Noel crit­i­cised De Bourg’s uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions af­fect­ing youth pro­grammes, in­clud­ing chang­ing cadet uni­forms and can­celling fundrais­ers. First Aid co­or­di­na­tor Au­gus­tus Forde blamed in­ter­fer­ence for the col­lapse of branch­es and ref­er­enced a law­suit over im­prop­er dis­missals.

Sev­en vol­un­teers ex­pressed con­cern over min­i­mal out­reach be­yond Port-of-Spain and poor sup­port for am­bu­lance ser­vices. One staffer not­ed a stark con­trast in how De Bourg treat­ed clients ver­sus em­ploy­ees—ini­tial im­prove­ments gave way to a tox­ic work cul­ture.

In the fi­nal in­ter­view, Michelle Pa­ter­son, for­mer di­rec­tor of Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, called the or­gan­i­sa­tion “a one-per­son rule”, with the pres­i­dent uni­lat­er­al­ly de­cid­ing on aid dis­tri­b­u­tion and staff leave. Those who raised con­cerns were of­ten forced to go to the me­dia.

T&T Red Cross Board com­mits to elec­tions and au­dits

Guardian Me­dia reached out to De Bourg last week­end to find out whether any of the mis­sion re­port’s rec­om­men­da­tions had been im­ple­ment­ed. The T&T Red Cross Board re­spond­ed on Mon­day.

Here is the re­sponse:

“Thank you for your email over the week­end to our pres­i­dent Ms Jill De Bourg. The board would have re­viewed your ques­tion and wish­es to ad­vise the fol­low­ing: The Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety would have fa­cil­i­tat­ed a two-mem­ber mis­sion team in De­cem­ber 2024. As part of its man­date, the team con­duct­ed in­ter­views with sev­er­al per­sons, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the board, staff, and vol­un­teers of the TTRCS. Many of these meet­ings were fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the TTRCS.

While the mis­sion team would have pre­pared its re­port in Jan­u­ary 2025, the TTRCS re­ceived a copy of said re­port on April 11, 2025. We are in the process of re­view­ing this re­port in de­tail to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive up­date to our mem­bers and a re­sponse to the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Red Cross (IFRC).

Al­though the mis­sion re­port team has made cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions, it must be not­ed that the TTRCS has been on a path of com­pre­hen­sive trans­for­ma­tion since 2021. This

in­cludes the dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of its sys­tems, process­es, and pro­ce­dures, and the stream­lin­ing of its op­er­a­tions.

Sev­er­al of the rec­om­men­da­tions in the mis­sion re­port were al­ready be­ing pur­sued by the TTRCS as part of its trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tive.

Every Red Cross So­ci­ety’s (RCS) struc­ture dif­fers based on its op­er­a­tional needs and fund­ing avail­abil­i­ty in the coun­try of op­er­a­tion. With re­spect to the role of di­rec­tor gen­er­al for Trinidad and To­ba­go, it is im­por­tant to note that the TTRCS has an ef­fec­tive man­age­ment team in place that is re­spon­si­ble for the day-to-day op­er­a­tions and ac­tiv­i­ties of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. This man­age­ment team re­ports to the board of the TTRCS and keeps the board in­formed of all crit­i­cal is­sues re­quir­ing the board’s at­ten­tion and de­ci­sion.

Please note that on May 7, 2025, the board took the de­ci­sion to host na­tion­al elec­tions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety in Au­gust 2025, at which time a new gov­ern­ing coun­cil and ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee are ex­pect­ed to be elect­ed.

We in­tend to ta­ble our com­plet­ed fi­nan­cial au­dits be­fore our mem­bers. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion has al­ready been shared with all our fi­nan­cial mem­bers on the up­com­ing elec­tions, the process, and time­lines.

We have be­gun a mem­ber­ship cam­paign that ends on June 30, to al­low in­di­vid­u­als to reg­u­larise their mem­ber­ship sta­tus ahead of the elec­tions. We en­cour­age all mem­bers who may not be in good stand­ing to up­date their mem­ber­ship so we can have full par­tic­i­pa­tion at the na­tion­al elec­tions.

The board plans to is­sue a full state­ment this week on the up­com­ing elec­tion and the progress we have made with the trans­for­ma­tion process. We hope this clar­i­fies your ques­tions.”