Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­le­ga­tions that his Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor ver­bal­ly abused pub­lic health work­ers dur­ing a meet­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Au­gus­tine has asked the work­ers to come for­ward, urg­ing them to reach out to him di­rect­ly.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, sev­er­al work­ers claimed that Breb­nor, who is al­so the Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness, and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, cursed and threat­ened ter­mi­na­tion dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with them on the Pub­lic Health Ser­vices De­part­ment com­pound at Sig­nal Hill.

How­ev­er, Dr Breb­nor has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, stat­ing that while the meet­ing was “spir­it­ed”, it was not abu­sive. She sug­gest­ed that in­di­vid­u­als with agen­das against her may be push­ing the claims.

Breb­nor ex­plained that the meet­ing fo­cused on up­com­ing projects in Sig­nal Hill, in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion of a task force build­ing, the out­fit­ting of the me­chan­i­cal work­shop, and the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the vec­tor lab. She said the dis­cus­sion cov­ered the costs of these projects, work­ers’ ex­pec­ta­tions, and plans for mov­ing for­ward.

She ex­plained, “I had a meet­ing this morn­ing on the pub­lic health com­pound, where I up­dat­ed the work­ers about the projects that are about to start in Sig­nal Hill. These in­clude the con­struc­tion of the task force build­ing (af­ter at least a decade of promis­es), the out­fit­ting of the me­chan­i­cal work­shop (with a car ramp, etc), and the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the vec­tor lab.

“We had a spir­it­ed con­ver­sa­tion about the costs of these projects, the ex­pec­ta­tions of the work­ers af­ter we make this in­vest­ment, and ways of mov­ing for­ward.”

Asked if she is sur­prised by the claims, she said, “Folks have their agen­das.”

When asked about the mat­ter, Au­gus­tine told Guardian Me­dia he was not aware of the al­le­ga­tions but as­sured that he would in­ves­ti­gate if any THA work­er felt abused by a sec­re­tary or as­sis­tant sec­re­tary. He urged those af­fect­ed to come for­ward and lodge for­mal com­plaints with him.

He said, “This is the first I am hear­ing of it. If any work­er of the THA feels abused by any sec­re­tary or as­sis­tant sec­re­tary, I will want them to come to me and be will­ing to lodge those claims di­rect­ly to me so I can in­ves­ti­gate said claims.”

Au­gus­tine, who was con­duct­ing a pub­lic of­fice day with To­bag­o­ni­ans at the time, said, “I most def­i­nite­ly will in­ves­ti­gate.”

He said those with claims could al­so send him an email at far­ley.au­gus­tine@tha.gov.tt

Work­ers: We don’t want sor­ry, we are wait­ing for THA elec­tions

“Dis­gust­ing, ap­palling, and bor­der­line in­sult­ing” were some of the words the work­ers used to de­scribe the in­ter­ac­tion.

None of them want­ed to be iden­ti­fied when they reached out to Guardian Me­dia to com­plain.

One work­er from the me­chan­i­cal unit said he could not be­lieve Breb­nor’s at­ti­tude.

He said, “She is not sup­posed to come keep a meet­ing with us with­out a pub­lic ser­vant. She is a politi­cian. Ei­ther the ad­min­is­tra­tor or EO2 or our im­me­di­ate su­per­vi­sor. We still fa­cil­i­tat­ed her, and we went and lis­tened.”

He said she then spoke about a por­tion of a $9 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion to the di­vi­sion for de­vel­op­ment to do re­pairs and ad­dress OSH con­cerns.

“She then said she didn’t know where she would get that mon­ey from, if it would come from ‘up her a***'Every­body’s eye­brows raised.”

When the $9 mil­lion cost was an­nounced—ac­cord­ing to an­oth­er work­er—em­ploy­ees pushed back, ques­tion­ing how funds were avail­able to hire con­trac­tors while they lacked es­sen­tial re­sources.

“We have plumbers, car­pen­ters, and ma­sons to do the work. We just lack the re­sources and PPE and have been protest­ing for it for years.”

The work­er said Breb­nor de­fend­ed out­sourc­ing by claim­ing the in-house team was too slow and in­ef­fi­cient.

“She said when she paid her ‘f****** con­trac­tor, they had to de­liv­er.’

“This re­al­ly hurt me. As some­one hold­ing such high of­fice, that’s not how to speak to To­bag­o­ni­ans. She even said she doesn’t care if we don’t vote for her. Be care­ful what you wish for,” the work­er warned.

He said he, along with oth­ers, walked away mid-meet­ing.

An­oth­er work­er from the trans­port de­part­ment, said he re­mained and wit­nessed when she be­rat­ed a fore­man over poor work eth­ic.

“She asked for the trans­port fore­man, and when he raised his hand, she turned and told the big man, ‘You see f****** you, I have to have a se­ri­ous f****** con­ver­sa­tion with you,’” the work­er claimed.

Two oth­er work­ers cor­rob­o­rat­ed this ex­change, with one say­ing he de­fend­ed the fore­man by cau­tion­ing the sec­re­tary about her at­ti­tude to­wards work­ers.

Work­ers al­so claimed that when they raised con­cerns about over­time, she dis­mis­sive­ly asked where they ex­pect­ed her to get the mon­ey.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er work­er said this was when she asked the work­ers if they want­ed her to “pull it from up her a***.”

There was one work­er who de­nied the ver­bal abuse hap­pened. In­stead, he said the sec­re­tary cor­rect­ed the fore­man for poor work eth­ic in the pres­ence of the group. He de­nied ob­scene lan­guage was used.

The work­ers that Breb­nor met with are at­tached to the Pub­lic Health Ser­vices De­part­ment, which in­cludes sprayers, ro­dent eval­u­a­tors, me­chan­ics, and the task force, to name a few.

Mean­while, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is call­ing on Breb­nor to apol­o­gise in sev­en days be­fore join­ing with the work­ers to take ac­tion.

In a Face­book post, Mor­ris claimed work­ers al­so reached out to him com­plain­ing of ver­bal abuse.

How­ev­er, the work­ers firm­ly re­ject­ed the idea of an apol­o­gy. In­stead, they said they are ea­ger­ly await­ing the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due ear­ly 2026.