Questions Mount Over LandmarkTT Procurement And Political Ties

ASHA JAVEED and SHAL-IZA HAS-SANALI One month af-ter Land-mark-TT Prop-er-ties Lim-it-ed was in-cor-po-rat-ed in Feb-ru-ary 2026, it spent $347,750 to lease a ve-hi-cle from D&D Au-to World for a three-year pe-ri-od.

On the same day, March 16, 2026, it spent $22,551 on sta-tionery for its staff.

Its first ma-jor con-tract was award-ed on April 17 to Mooti-lal Ramhit & Sons Con-tract-ing Lim-it-ed, a $129.2 mil-lion con-tract for the pro-vi-sion of de-sign-build-fi-nance ser-vices for the con-struc-tion of sin-gle-fam-i-ly homes and du-plex-es at the Al-lam-by Res-i-den-tial De-vel-op-ment, Corinth, San Fer-nan-do.

This was list-ed on the com-pa-ny’s web-site, along with a con-tract to build an in-ter-ac-tive por-tal for Ex-cel Glob-al So-lu-tions.

Last week, Guardian Me-dia re-port-ed that the Of-fice of the Pro-cure-ment Reg-u-la-tor (OPR) was in-ves-ti-gat-ing Land-mark-TT’s han-dling of the pro-cure-ment process fol-low-ing a com-plaint lodged on April 18 by for-mer min-is-ter Ran-dall Mitchell.

Land-mark-TT’s line min-is-ter, Sad-dam Ho-sein, said last Fri-day that a se-lec-tive, com-pet-i-tive pro-cure-ment method was utilised for the se-lec-tion of the de-vel-op-ers, all of whom were al-ready reg-is-tered on the OPR’s de-pos-i-to-ry as con-trac-tors in that line of busi-ness.

“And the suc-cess-ful de-vel-op-er in [the case of the Al-lam-by site] was Mooti-lal Ramhit & Sons Con-tract-ing Ltd.

This was not a sin-gle-source se-lec-tion.

“I am fur-ther ad-vised that the OPR did not halt the works at that site,” Ho-sein said in a state-ment to Par-lia-ment.

The min-is-ter fur-ther not-ed that Land-mark-TT was co-op-er-at-ing with the OPR and said he want-ed to set the record straight, “that none of my fam-i-ly mem-bers have re-ceived any Gov-ern-ment con-tracts.” How-ev-er, Ho-sein did not ad-dress con-cerns, even with fol-low-up ques-tions from Guardian Me-dia In-ves-ti-ga-tions Desk yes-ter-day, that his friends and close as-so-ciates had ben-e-fit-ed from his of-fice.

On April 11, 2022, Saman-tha Han-sra-jie Singh-Poona in-cor-po-rat-ed Sad-dam Ho-sein and Co Lim-it-ed, where the two di-rec-tors are Ho-sein and her-self.

Saman-tha Singh is the deputy chair of the North Cen-tral Re-gion-al Health Au-thor-i-ty.

Her hus-band, Nis-chall Shane Poona, was hired as Land-mark-TT’s chief ex-ec-u-tive af-ter it was es-tab-lished.

For most of his ca-reer, Shane Poona has been an IT pro-fes-sion-al with pre-vi-ous stints at ANSA McAL and Dig-i-cel, and had sev-er-al com-pa-nies with his wife, Saman-tha.

How-ev-er, on-ly their con-struc-tion com-pa-ny, Nis-po Con-struc-tion Lim-it-ed, re-mains ac-tive.

Shane Poona is al-so the deputy chair of IGovTT.

The broth-er of Ho-sein’s per-son-al ad-vi-sor, Jerome Jag-ger-nauth, was al-so hired at Land-mark-TT.

Ho-sein was asked to com-ment on the hir-ing process at Land-mark and the po-ten-tial im-pli-ca-tions for his over-sight of the Gov-ern-ment’s land bank, but he did not re-spond to mes-sages yes-ter-day, nor did Shane Poona.

With Land-mark-TT on-ly es-tab-lished three months ago and ma-jor ques-tions al-ready sur-round-ing its first pro-cure-ment with-in its sec-ond month of op-er-a-tions, char-tered sur-vey-or and man-ag-ing di-rec-tor of Ray-mond and Pierre Ltd, Afra Ray-mond, is con-cerned about pub-lic of-fi-cials ad-her-ing to the le-gal re-quire-ments of their of-fices.

He not-ed that un-der the OPR rules, Land-mark-TT was re-quired to pub-lish its con-tract award but re-port-ed-ly did not do so un-til af-ter the OPR made the re-quest.

“Was it that the pub-lic of-fi-cials knew of the le-gal re-quire-ment and just ig-nored it, or was it that those of-fi-cials were sim-ply un-aware of that re-quire-ment?

More to the point, which of those al-ter-na-tives is worse?

So why can’t this con-tract be pub-lished now?’ Ray-mond asked.

He fur-ther ques-tioned, “What is the area and val-ue of the State lands com-mit-ted to this project?” Al-so, “If no pub-lic mon-ey is be-ing com-mit-ted to this project, what does the re-port-ed fig-ure of $100M re-fer to?” Ac-cord-ing to in-formed Cab-i-net sources, with the cre-ation of Land-mark-TT, sig-nif-i-cant con-tracts re-lat-ed to the sup-ply of State hous-ing were trans-ferred to Ho-sein’s min-istry, with the Hous-ing De-vel-op-ment Cor-po-ra-tion (HDC) be-com-ing more of a main-te-nance com-pa-ny for what pre-vi-ous-ly ex-ist-ed, while all new and card-ed projects are han-dled by Land-mark-TT.

In April, the OPR halt-ed $3.48 bil-lion in con-tracts award-ed by the HDC to 11 con-trac-tors to cre-ate 3,700 new homes.

Among those 11, Mooti-lal Ramhit and Sons Con-tract-ing Ltd was the largest ben-e-fi-cia-ry with a $1 bil-lion con-tract.

“Our re-port-ing and de-bat-ing on these is-sues has been con-fined to the usu-al claims of favoured con-trac-tors, po-lit-i-cal-ly favoured play-ers and al-le-ga-tions of im-prop-er be-hav-iour.

None of those is-sues are unim-por-tant and they must be treat-ed with due se-ri-ous-ness, but what is emerg-ing here is the far more se-ri-ous im-pli-ca-tions of our en-trenched prac-tices.

“We must ex-plic-it-ly be-have as if pub-lic mon-ey is more im-por-tant than pri-vate mon-ey; there is no al-ter-na-tive.

We have to ad-vance these con-cepts to prop-er-ly de-fend the pub-lic in-ter-est.

Giv-en that ‘cozy con-sen-sus’ be-tween the po-lit-i-cal par-ties, we can-not ex-pect these crit-i-cal is-sues to be raised by our po-lit-i-cal par-ties.

Is-sues of this kind ought to at-tract the at-ten-tion of our schol-ars at UWI and UTT, but here we are.

Be-tween a rock and a hard place.

What a dis-grace!” lament-ed Ray-mond.

Ray-mond is call-ing on the Gov-ern-ment to dis-close the val-ue of the lands al-lo-cat-ed to Land-mark-TT.

Fol-low-ing Cab-i-net ap-proval ear-li-er this year, the com-pa-ny was es-tab-lished un-der Ho-sein as a pub-lic-pri-vate part-ner-ship (PPP).

Through this ini-tia-tive, the Gov-ern-ment will part-ner with pri-vate sec-tor in-vestors and de-vel-op-ers to con-struct high-qual-i-ty, un-sub-sidised hous-es on State lands in-to ful-ly planned res-i-den-tial com-mu-ni-ties to serve mid-dle to up-per-in-come earn-ers and ex-pand the sup-ply of mod-ern hous-ing.

Last month, Ho-sein dis-closed that his min-istry had al-ready iden-ti-fied parcels of land.

“I can tell you that there’s one par-tic-u-lar project called Al-lam-by… That is in Tarou-ba.

It’s a beau-ti-ful site right out-side of the ma-jor shop-ping ar-eas of C3 and South Park on the north-bound lane.” Hav-ing seen the de-sign of the pro-posed hous-es, Ho-sein said, “It’s all go-ing to be gat-ed com-mu-ni-ties.

We are ex-pect-ing to have the first set of homes, which is about 80 units, com-plet-ed at the end of this year.” How-ev-er, giv-en the 200,000-plus HDC ap-pli-cants cur-rent-ly wait-ing in line for State hous-ing, Ray-mond said, “We need to con-sid-er the ex-tent to which that mod-el can de-liv-er the de-cent hous-ing so bad-ly need-ed by our poor-est cit-i-zens.” With re-spect to the Land-mark TT de-vel-op-ments, which are to be fi-nanced by the de-vel-op-ers util-is-ing idle State lands with the Gov-ern-ment re-ceiv-ing a share of the land val-ue when homes are sold, Ray-mond warned that “there is a long-term and detri-men-tal blind spot in how projects are dis-cussed in our coun-try, in that we nev-er, ever men-tion the val-ue of the lands be-ing ded-i-cat-ed to these projects.

“We need to in-clude the val-ue of the land in our con-sid-er-a-tion of these projects.

It is not pos-si-ble to ap-pre-ci-ate the full scope of these projects if we con-tin-ue to omit the land el-e-ment,” he stressed.

Ray-mond, who is a for-mer pres-i-dent of the In-sti-tute of Sur-vey-ors as well as the Joint Con-sul-ta-tive Coun-cil, fur-ther point-ed out that the on-ly fig-ure men-tioned is the con-tract sum for con-struc-tion.

“That needs to change.

The State needs to ex-plic-it-ly de-clare the val-ue of the lands be-ing ded-i-cat-ed to these projects if we are to have a clear pic-ture of these de-vel-op-ments,” he said.

Ray-mond al-so raised con-cerns that pri-vate de-vel-op-ers are guar-an-teed pay-ment by the State even if the pro-ject-ed com-mer-cial out-comes are not met.

“Quite sim-ply, I do not at all ac-cept the no-tion that no pub-lic mon-ey is at risk in these projects.

It all comes down to the dif-fer-ence be-tween the cash and ac-cru-al ap-proach-es to ac-count-ing, and that can be a chal-leng-ing mat-ter for some peo-ple.” He said if the pri-vate sec-tor is not bear-ing any risks, it means that “we have been pur-su-ing a detri-men-tal PPP mod-el thus far.” A 2016 Joint Se-lect Com-mit-tee re-port on an in-quiry in-to the land tenure is-sues in T&T stat-ed that the coun-try has a to-tal land area of 512,600 hectares, of which 52 per cent is owned by the State.

These lands now fall un-der the con-trol of Ho-sein’s min-istry.

The re-port stat-ed that lands held by Ca-roni 1975 Ltd were 31,567 hectares, for-est re-serve and pro-tect-ed ar-eas 167,584.7 hectares, land al-lo-cat-ed for agri-cul-tur-al pur-pos-es 29,863 hectares and land al-lo-cat-ed to oth-er state-owned com-pa-nies and au-thor-i-ties 37,717 hectares, which to-talled 266,731.7 hectares or 658,000 acres.

With the State con-trol-ling over half of T&T’s land mass, there is a grow-ing sense of an-tic-i-pa-tion about how the min-istry will shape the land-scape of land man-age-ment and dis-tri-b-u-tion, and ad-dress the long-stand-ing is-sues of land fraud and cor-rup-tion.

For-mer vice chair-man of the Es-tate Man-age-ment Busi-ness De-vel-op-ment Com-pa-ny (EM-BD) Stephen Broad-bridge, for-mer agri-cul-ture min-is-ter Vas-ant Bharath and for-mer pres-i-dent gen-er-al of the Sug-ar Boil-ers As-so-ci-a-tion Ra-keeb Mo-hammed said the is-sue of State lands go-ing in-to the wrong hands, pub-lic ser-vants be-ing in-volved in land fraud and busi-ness peo-ple brib-ing Gov-ern-ment em-ploy-ees to fast-track doc-u-ments have al-ways been touchy and con-tentious sub-jects.

The trio ar-gued that these is-sues must be tack-led for a fair and eq-ui-table dis-tri-b-u-tion of State lands to cit-i-zens.

Ho-sein was one of sev-er-al min-is-ters who were giv-en ad-di-tion-al re-spon-si-bil-i-ties af-ter be-ing sworn in as Min-is-ter of Le-gal Af-fairs and Min-is-ter in the Min-istry of Agri-cul-ture, Land and Fish-eries last May.

One of the ma-jor changes made by Prime Min-is-ter Kam-la Per-sad-Bisses-sar was the re-moval of the en-tire land port-fo-lio from the Min-istry of Agri-cul-ture, Land and Fish-eries, led by Sen-a-tor Ravi Rati-ram.

This port-fo-lio was giv-en to Ho-sein to over-see, along with the con-sol-i-da-tion of sev-er-al State agen-cies, en-ter-pris-es and di-vi-sions to en-sure that the sys-tems gov-ern-ing land are ef-fi-cient, trans-par-ent and ac-ces-si-ble to the pub-lic.

Ho-sein was tasked with the reg-u-lar-i-sa-tion of tenure, hous-ing for squat-ters, sur-veys and map-ping, val-u-a-tion and over-see-ing the Land Sur-vey Board of T&T, the Land Set-tle-ment Agency (LSA), the Land Man-age-ment Di-vi-sion (LMD), and EM-BD.

Un-der the LMD, the Com-mis-sion-er of State Lands (COSL) is charged with the over-all man-age-ment, dis-tri-b-u-tion and al-lo-ca-tion of all State lands.

LSA and EM-BD were pre-vi-ous-ly man-aged un-der the Min-istry of Hous-ing and Ur-ban De-vel-op-ment and the Min-istry of Agri-cul-ture, re-spec-tive-ly.

How-ev-er, af-ter the Cab-i-net re-align-ment, Ho-sein was giv-en the Ch-aguara-mas De-vel-op-ment Au-thor-i-ty (CDA) and the Evolv-ing Tec-knolo-gies and En-ter-prise De-vel-op-ment Com-pa-ny Ltd (eTecK) to su-per-vise.

The min-istry’s web-site al-so shows that Ho-sein has re-spon-si-bil-i-ty for the new-ly es-tab-lished Land-mark TT Prop-er-ties Ltd, the Law Re-vi-sion Com-mis-sion, in-tel-lec-tu-al prop-er-ty, li-cences such as births, deaths and mar-riages, Jus-tice of the Peace and com-mis-sion-er of af-fi-davits.

Guardian Me-dia In-ves-ti-ga-tions Desk un-der-stands he is al-so in-clud-ed in key le-gal ne-go-ti-a-tion mat-ters in-volv-ing the State.

On the eve of the Unit-ed Na-tion-al Con-gress cel-e-brat-ing its first an-niver-sary in of-fice last month, Ho-sein spoke about the 600 leas-es he dis-trib-uted to for-mer Ca-roni 1975 Ltd work-ers who wait-ed 23 years for their le-gal doc-u-ments and the 20,000 peo-ple who had re-cent-ly ap-plied un-der the LSA’s Land for the Land-less Pro-gramme, stat-ing they were work-ing to-wards re-sults.

Ca-roni 1975 Ltd was shut down in 2003.

Its lands, com-pris-ing 77,000 acres, span from Ca-roni Sa-van-nah Road to far-flung Wood-land.

The EM-BD was re-spon-si-ble for de-vel-op-ing 7,246 two-acre agri-cul-tur-al par-cel lots and 8,885 res-i-den-tial plots for for-mer Ca-roni 1975 Ltd work-ers as part of their Vol-un-tary Sep-a-ra-tion (VSEP) pack-ages.

Hav-ing worked as a sug-ar boil-er for 24 years in Ca-roni, Mo-hammed said it pained his heart to see peo-ple who were nev-er em-ploy-ees of the com-pa-ny giv-en lands ahead of those who slaved in the sug-ar-cane fields.

Mo-hammed said politi-cians, busi-ness-men, con-trac-tors and State of-fi-cials were ben-e-fi-cia-ries of Ca-roni’s land.

Mo-hammed said these “big boys” were giv-en large acreages of Ca-roni lands in prime lo-ca-tions in Wa-ter-loo, Cou-va, Re-form, Chan-der-nagore and Cal-cut-ta, while farm-ers were al-lo-cat-ed lands in ar-eas that were not eas-i-ly ac-ces-si-ble.

“Some of them get leas-es and they didn’t know if it was be-hind God’s back.

There were no ac-cess roads…on-ly bush,” he said, adding that the big boys “start-ed off by plant-i-ng a few trees on the land and then it mush-roomed in-to a busi-ness.

“So the land cor-rup-tion was there for a long time.

Them big boys make re-al deal.

I could call a few names of who get land.

I am not go-ing to blame one gov-ern-ment.

I will blame them all.

Every-thing in Trinidad is a bobol.” He fur-ther lament-ed that State lands were go-ing in-to the hands of un-de-serv-ing peo-ple.

“This has to stop,” Mo-hammed said, point-ing out that at least half of the for-mer Ca-roni work-ers have died with-out re-ceiv-ing what was right-ful-ly due to them.

“Noth-ing could be more painful for the fam-i-lies of these work-ers who passed away.” Last Feb-ru-ary, Mo-hammed, 66, said he ap-plied for a vari-a-tion to his agri-cul-tur-al lease but is still await-ing doc-u-men-ta-tion.

“I want to trans-fer the land to my chil-dren, but I can’t do any-thing un-til I get that doc-u-ment.

I checked for an up-date re-cent-ly and I was told that my file had not been touched.

It was still sit-ting on a tray.” In the mean-time, the min-istry still has to hand out ap-prox-i-mate-ly 2,000 Ca-roni leas-es, as some sites are still in-com-plete.

In 2019, Ca-roni (1975) chair-man Jer-ry Hospedales re-vealed that since the State-owned com-pa-ny closed down in 2003, the Gov-ern-ment has spent $10 bil-lion in “wrap-ping” it up.

The Land Set-tle-ment Agency’s role is to reg-u-larise squat-ters and ten-ants in oc-cu-pa-tion of State lands.

There are over 250 squat-ting sites scat-tered through-out the coun-try, with over 60,000 peo-ple squat-ting fam-i-lies oc-cu-py-ing State lands.

Es-tab-lished in 1972, the Ch-aguara-mas De-vel-op-ment Au-thor-i-ty (CDA) is em-pow-ered to pro-mote the de-vel-op-ment of 4,850 hectares of land on the north-west penin-su-la.

The land in-cludes the Ch-aguara-mas Golf Course, com-pris-ing 39 hectares.

In March, Evolv-ing Tec-knolo-gies and En-ter-prise De-vel-op-ment Com-pa-ny Ltd (eTecK) was trans-ferred from Trade, In-vest-ment and Tourism Min-is-ter Ka-ma Ma-haraj to Ho-sein.

eTecK has an ex-ten-sive port-fo-lio of ap-prox-i-mate-ly 2,915 hectares of land.

These in-clude de-vel-oped, re-serves and fu-ture strate-gic sites across 22 in-dus-tri-al parks, no-tably the 1,100-acre Tamana In-Tech Park, as well as the Mag-dale-na Grand and Hilton Trinidad.

LandmarkTT, Saddam Hosein, OPR investigation, Trinidad housing, government contracts, procurement scandal, state land