In a recent exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, former Trinidad and Tobago Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan stated that no reports of improper conduct linked to Hayden Phillip, the former Deputy Director of the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency (PURE), ever crossed his desk during his entire tenure in public office. The remarks came in response to public inquiries following Phillip’s formal dismissal on September 25, 2026, via an official termination notice from the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure that cited severe allegations including gross misconduct, malfeasance, misbehaviour in public office, and formal breaches of his employment contract.
Sinanan further clarified that Phillip had only been appointed to the deputy director role in the final years of his ministerial term, and that to his direct knowledge, the recruitment process was fully administered by the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure’s internal Human Resources department via a standard structured interview framework, with no reported irregularities flagged at the time of hiring.
Parallel to these developments, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar confirmed during recent parliamentary Standing Finance Committee proceedings that the 20-plus year old PURE programme is set to be fully decommissioned, with ongoing official probes that are expected to result in formal criminal charges against unnamed individuals tied to operational irregularities within the road works body. Persad-Bissessar raised sharp criticisms of PURE’s long-term efficacy, noting that successive decades of substantial public funding allocated to the programme have failed to resolve persistent, widespread road infrastructure deficits across the twin-island nation.
In a separate, high-stakes parallel investigation, the Prime Minister also announced that authorities are reviewing more than $750 million in public expenditure tied to the construction of a mere three-mile stretch of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway Extension, a project greenlit and executed under the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) administration. Persad-Bissessar confirmed that senior leadership at both the Ministry of Works and Transport and the National Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (Nidco), the state agency tasked with delivering large-scale public infrastructure projects, will be required to provide full, sworn explanations for the uncharacteristically high spending on the short highway segment. No additional details on the specific identities of suspects under investigation, the exact nature of alleged offences, or a projected timeline for formal criminal charges have been released to the public to date.
Originally launched more than 20 years ago to oversee nationwide road improvement initiatives, PURE’s official mandate covered six core operational areas: full road rehabilitation for local and high-priority arterial routes, traffic management upgrades to expand road capacity, cut congestion and boost public road safety, construction of temporary alternative access routes to minimize disruption during active works, slope stabilization and landslip remediation to preserve cross-community connectivity, end-to-end planning and execution of new bridge construction and existing bridge repairs, and development of pedestrian overpasses to eliminate road safety risks for walking commuters.
Sinanan: No wrongdoing reports against former-PURE deputy
