Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed (NC­SHL), Lester Leu, has been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with pay as the state-owned agency in­ves­ti­gates a se­ries of mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions, in­clud­ing breach­es of pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures, fail­ure to com­ply with board di­rec­tives and ac­tions al­leged­ly aimed at un­der­min­ing the board’s au­thor­i­ty.

Leu was in­struct­ed to pro­ceed on leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect in a let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 18 and signed by NC­SHL chair­man Vish­nu Ramkhelawan.

The let­ter, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, stat­ed that the de­ci­sion was tak­en pend­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing Leu’s per­for­mance as CEO.

Sev­en ar­eas of con­cern were iden­ti­fied, in­clud­ing an al­leged fail­ure to com­ply with le­git­i­mate in­struc­tions from the board of di­rec­tors and an al­leged breach of pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures re­lat­ed to the hir­ing of con­trac­tors.

Leu is al­so ac­cused of dis­re­gard­ing, cir­cum­vent­ing and un­der­min­ing the au­thor­i­ty of the board by com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one or more Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to so­lic­it names for va­cant staff po­si­tions.

Ad­di­tion­al al­le­ga­tions claim he en­gaged in con­duct con­trary to the in­ter­ests of the or­gan­i­sa­tion by plac­ing ex­ces­sive and oner­ous de­mands on staff out­side nor­mal work­ing hours, in­clud­ing on week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days.

He is fur­ther ac­cused of ver­bal abuse of staff, fail­ing to ad­here to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s dis­ci­pli­nary pol­i­cy and pub­lish­ing false or un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed in­for­ma­tion and ma­te­r­i­al.

The al­le­ga­tions re­main un­proven, and the let­ter makes clear that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will seek to es­tab­lish the facts and cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the claims.

Ac­cord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dence, Leu’s ad­min­is­tra­tive leave is in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate a “fair and im­par­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” while min­imis­ing work­place dis­rup­tion and pre­serv­ing the in­tegri­ty of the process.

The com­pa­ny stat­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will de­ter­mine whether fur­ther ac­tion is war­rant­ed, in­clud­ing dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures up to and in­clud­ing ter­mi­na­tion of em­ploy­ment.

While on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, Leu has been in­struct­ed not to re­port to work, per­form any du­ties on be­half of NC­SHL, or ac­cess com­pa­ny email ac­counts, in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems, files, records, ve­hi­cles, or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­sources un­less ex­press­ly au­tho­rised in writ­ing.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris for com­ment, but ef­forts were un­suc­cess­ful.

The de­vel­op­ment comes just weeks af­ter NC­SHL pub­licly com­mend­ed Leu’s lead­er­ship of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In a fea­ture ar­ti­cle pub­lished on March 16, 2026, the com­mis­sion said Leu was lead­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion with “vi­sion, in­tegri­ty and a re­newed com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment.” It cred­it­ed his strate­gic di­rec­tion and stew­ard­ship with ad­vanc­ing the com­mis­sion’s man­date and strength­en­ing its de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme frame­work.

The ar­ti­cle said Leu had cham­pi­oned struc­tured stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, trans­par­ent gov­er­nance and mea­sur­able per­for­mance stan­dards, while fos­ter­ing what the com­mis­sion de­scribed as a cul­ture of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, in­clu­sion and shared val­ue.

It al­so high­light­ed his Ex­ec­u­tive MBA from the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, along with his ex­pe­ri­ence in se­nior man­age­ment and strate­gic ad­vi­so­ry roles across both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

At­tempts to reach Leu for com­ment yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

NC­SHL is a state-owned agency es­tab­lished to al­le­vi­ate pover­ty and im­prove qual­i­ty of life by pro­mot­ing self-re­liance and civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Its work fo­cus­es on pro­vid­ing mi­cro- and macro-in­fra­struc­tur­al as­sis­tance to in­di­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and non-prof­it groups for projects such as drainage works, ac­cess roads, bridges and com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties.

The com­mis­sion al­so pro­vides grants and oth­er forms of as­sis­tance through pro­grammes such as its Mi­nor Re­pairs and Re­con­struc­tion Grant. El­i­gi­ble ben­e­fi­cia­ries, in­clud­ing low-in­come fam­i­lies, pen­sion­ers and peo­ple af­fect­ed by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, may re­ceive ma­te­ri­als, vouch­ers or fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, with re­cip­i­ents and com­mu­ni­ties con­tribut­ing to project im­ple­men­ta­tion and com­ple­tion.