Quamina

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

Senior Investigative Reporter

[email protected]

On April 3, 2025, twenty-five days before the general election, the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) sealed a 30-year lease granting 21,000 square feet of Monos Island waterfront land to a firm co-owned by then-TPHL chairman Senior Counsel Michael Quamina, for $2,200 a month.

The firm itself was established a few months before, on February 21, 2025.

Guardian Media obtained a copy of the lease agreement between the CDA and DDI Property Limited, covering 2,038.5 square metres (21,942.2 square feet) of coastal property at Grand Fond Bay, also known as Turtle Bay.

The terms set the monthly rent at $2,200 along with an annual service charge equal to ten per cent of the annual rent, with a permitted use for residential purposes and an option to renew for an additional 30 years.

Tucked along the southern coast of Monos Island, Turtle Bay remains a secluded pocket of undeveloped coastal forest. Accessible primarily by water, the bay has no paved roads, public utilities, or permanent structures, leaving its dense vegetation and waterfront in a natural state.

To gauge private real estate values on the island, Guardian Media checked public property listings on the website My Bunch of Keys, where five parcels of land at Monos Island were advertised for sale as “pure virgin land.” The listings noted that the properties have Town and Country Planning Division approvals for residential use, though without WASA connections.

The advertised plots included a 2,719 square foot parcel identified as “Tstt east” listed at $250,000, a 3,129 square foot plot named “Tstt west” at $275,000, a 9,000 square foot “paddle tennis” plot at $1,200,000, a 30,000 square foot “water tank area” at $2,000,000, and a 19,442 square foot “beach front” parcel with an asking price of $2,500,000. As of October 29, Guardian Media understands that all but two of the listed parcels had been sold, with the smallest plot already off the market.

The transaction involving Quamina was raised on October 24 during a meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament by Land and Legal Affairs Minister Saddam Hosein, in response to questions from Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stuart Young regarding budget allocations to Palo Seco Agricultural Enterprises Limited (PSAEL).

After Hosein alleged that a former PSAEL chairman authorised work outside the company’s scope prior to the 2025 election, Young raised earlier lease approvals executed under the United National Congress-led People’s Partnership administration between 2010 and 2015.

“I smile because I remember the general election of 2015, the Sunday night before, how busy they were down at Chaguaramas Development, which now falls under you, and leases going early into the morning on the 7th of September 2015,” Young said.

Hosein countered with allegations concerning the 2025 transaction, stating that before the election, Quamina received a lease for four lots of land on Turtle Bay for $2,500 monthly. However, the registered lease document lists the monthly rent as $2,200.

Guardian Media also obtained a copy of the company’s annual returns, filed in 2026, which show that DDI Property Limited was incorporated on February 21, 2025, with its registered address at Chancery Chambers, 108 Duke Street, Port-of-Spain. The directors, shareholders, and beneficial owners are listed as attorney Michael Allan Andrew Quamina and businessman Arnim Kirt Ramsey. Quamina is also listed as corporate secretary. The annual return indicates the company had no employees.

In an interview with Guardian Media on October 29, when asked to confirm the date the company was formed, Quamina said, “ I have no reason to doubt that. The company, hence its name, was formed to eventually hold the property.”

The contract records that the CDA seal was affixed on March 28, 2025, and the seal of DDI Property Limited on April 3, 2025. The lease was signed for the CDA by then deputy chairman Robert Cezair and secretary Olivia Ramesar, in the presence of executive secretary Vernivia Peltier. Signing for DDI were Quamina as secretary and Ramsey as director, witnessed by business development officer Nailah Simon.

Quamina rejected claims that the lease was a last-minute pre-election deal, stating that the application process began long before election dates were set.

“Application was made in June 2023,” Quamina said. He added that an independent valuation was conducted by Linden Scott and Associates in May or June 2024. “Valuation would have been obtained based on a decision to lease. So well before any election.”

Addressing Hosein’s statement that the agreement covered four lots, Quamina said the contract involves a single surveyed parcel.

“Whatever the lease says it is, that’s what it is; it’s one lot, it’s not as was stated in the response that it is four lots,” Quamina said, noting that no application was made for multiple lots.

At the time the lease was executed, Quamina served as chairman of state enterprise Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited (TPHL), a position he resigned from on May 1, 2025. Asked if securing a lease from the CDA while heading TPHL raised issues under the Integrity in Public Life Act or presented a conflict of interest, Quamina denied any breach.

“Absolutely not, I am not CDA’s chairman,” Quamina said. “There’s nothing to do between CDA and TPHL. That is like saying, ‘If you get a loan with FCB, there’s a conflict ‘; there is no conflict whatsoever.”

Quamina added that he held no simultaneous discussions with the CDA regarding land usage during his tenure at TPHL.

Regarding current site conditions, Quamina confirmed that no physical works or land clearing have taken place. “Absolutely not, the land is bush,” he said, adding that he intends to commence development within the five-year timeframe required by the lease covenants.

Further questions were sent to Minister Hosein and the current board of the Chaguaramas Development Authority regarding the transaction after Quamina’s response, but up until publication time, there was no response.