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In a sharp rebuke issued yesterday, former Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Stuart Young has levied serious accusations against the current People’s National Movement (UNC)-led government, claiming it is orchestrating a systematic campaign of political persecution against the People’s National Movement (PNM). Young has publicly called on the ruling administration to uphold constitutional principles and address all alleged wrongdoing exclusively through established legal frameworks and due process. Young frames the coordinated push against the PNM as far more than a partisan dispute, arguing that it represents a fundamental threat to the nation’s democratic foundations. In his statement distributed to local media outlets, Young threw his full support behind a previous address by PNM chairman Marvin Gonzales, who first publicly denounced the string of political attacks targeting the opposition party.

“I unreservedly condemn these unprincipled attacks,” Young stated in the release. He emphasized that while any proven illegal activity or corrupt behavior must be properly investigated and sanctioned, these actions must follow formal legal protocols, free from partisan political meddling. “Make no mistake about it: this is a direct attack on the core of our democracy,” Young added. He doubled down on his claims, confirming that the UNC administration has carried out deliberate, targeted political persecution and victimization of PNM members and affiliates for an extended period.

As key evidence of the government’s targeting, Young pointed to mass terminations of thousands of low-income and vulnerable workers employed through state-run programs including CEPEP, URP, and national reforestation initiatives, as well as layoffs across dozens of state-owned entities spanning multiple ministries, energy giants Heritage Petroleum and Paria Fuel Trading, the National Gas Company, National Energy, Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), and the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC). He argued that the UNC leadership is deliberately diverting public attention from core governance failures with misleading rhetoric and distraction tactics, warning that the country is entering one of the most perilous periods in its modern political history.

Beyond the political targeting claims, Young sounded a urgent alarm over the nation’s growing fiscal instability, revealing that the ruling government has withdrawn more than US$500 million from the country’s critical Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF) over the past 12 months without any public transparency or advance notification to citizens. He also noted that the administration has taken on more than US$1.8 billion in new high-interest foreign currency debt, at a time when the country’s foreign exchange earnings are declining. “Our overall national indebtedness has reached a dangerously high threshold,” Young asserted. “Even a single late payment or default on any state-backed loan could push us over a fiscal cliff with devastating long-term consequences.”

Young, who previously served as the country’s energy minister, also warned that the nation’s critical energy sector is currently facing a deepening crisis, noting that two of the country’s largest petrochemical producers, Nutrien and Methanex, have completely ceased operations in recent months. He added that the current government has also failed to participate in critical cross-border natural gas negotiations with neighboring Venezuela in Caracas, adding that this is just one of many growing warning signs threatening the nation’s key economic driver.

In a related development yesterday, PNM Treasurer and former government minister Robert Le Hunte pushed back against recent government claims about the cost of the party’s new Balisier House headquarters in Port of Spain, describing the published figures as “grossly exaggerated”. In a telephone interview with media, Le Hunte rejected the ruling administration’s claim that the party has spent some TT$118 million on constructing the new facility. Le Hunte stated that based on his professional assessment, the cited price point is wildly inflated for the size and scope of the building in question. He also confirmed that he has not been given access to any of the documentation the state is referencing as part of its ongoing investigation into the source of funding for the construction project.

A bitter political row has broken out in Trinidad and Tobago after the national police secured High Court approval to compel the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) to disclose the source of funding for its multimillion-dollar Port of Spain headquarters, Balisier House. The conflict has escalated into a war of words between incumbent Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, leader of the governing United National Congress (UNC), and PNM leadership over allegations of partisan political interference in independent state institutions.

A recent High Court ruling forcing a major political party to disclose funding for a high-profile construction project has reignited longstanding calls for comprehensive campaign finance regulation in Trinidad and Tobago, with the local chapter of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TTTI) drawing a sharp distinction between the power of existing asset recovery laws and the dangerous gaps still plaguing the country’s political accountability framework.

On Friday, Justice Margaret Mohammed granted a court order requested by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), compelling the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) to explain the source of funding used to build Balisier House, the party’s headquarters in Port of Spain. When reached for comment Saturday, TTTI framed the ruling as a clear demonstration of the value of the 2019 Civil Asset Recovery and Management and Unexplained Wealth Act, calling the legislation a robust, effective tool that lives up to its design.

Unlike previous regulatory frameworks, the 2019 act gives courts formal authority to force any individual or organization—regardless of political standing—to account for assets that appear to far outstrip their confirmed legal income. TTTI emphasized this is exactly the sort of accountability mechanism the organization has campaigned for over years of anti-corruption advocacy, noting the court’s order proves the law delivers on its promised purpose.

However, TTTI was quick to point out a critical transparency gap that still undermines the country’s political system: there is currently no equivalent legal requirement for proactive transparency around how political parties raise money in the first place. The Unexplained Wealth Act only acts after the fact, once a criminal investigation has already been opened, leaving the public completely blind to party financing until a scandal forces disclosure through the courts.

“Trinidad and Tobago still has no law requiring parties to proactively disclose their donors, funding sources, or spending as they raise and spend it,” the organization wrote in an emailed response to the *Trinidad Express*. Current regulation only goes as far as capping individual candidate election spending at 50,000 Trinidad and Tobago dollars, with no spending limits and no mandatory disclosure requirements for political parties as entities. Notably, even the national Constitution and the existing Representation of the People Act do not formally define a political party for regulatory purposes, creating a foundational legal loophole.

TTTI argues that while the Unexplained Wealth Act has already proven effective at enabling investigators and courts to scrutinize suspicious unexplained assets, the absence of binding campaign finance rules means the public cannot access information about political party financing until formal legal proceedings are underway. “The tools that exposed this matter work. What is missing is the tool that would have made this kind of financing visible years earlier, before it needed a court order to surface,” the statement read.

The watchdog noted that the long-proposed Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill would directly address this gap. The proposed legislation would introduce mandatory registration for all political parties, require public release of audited annual financial statements, mandate disclosure of all donations above a set threshold, and establish an independent oversight body to enforce the rules. In light of the Balisier House ruling, TTTI has renewed its urgent call for parliament to pass the long-delayed campaign finance reform legislation, saying the measures are critical to strengthening transparency and accountability across Trinidad and Tobago’s political system.

Speaking to the broader public implications of the Balisier House investigation, TTTI explained that the case underscores a long-standing problem: political financing in the country can remain hidden from public view for years, only coming to light through court orders or criminal probes rather than routine, proactive disclosure. The organization described the current political financing framework as a “serious accountability deficit” that affects all administrations and political parties, regardless of which holds power.

TTTI stressed that when voters have no way to know who is funding the political parties they support, they cannot accurately judge whether government policies and public contracts are being awarded to serve the public good, or to advance the private interests of party donors. This lack of transparency, the organization added, does not just erode trust in the individual party facing scrutiny—it undermines public confidence in the entire political system as a whole.

“The lesson for Trinidad and Tobago isn’t about this case alone—it’s that we need the guardrails Parliament has left sitting on the table: campaign finance disclosure, spending limits for parties, and an independent body with real power to enforce them, before the next election cycle, not after the next scandal,” TTTI concluded.