Three separate Housing Development Corporation policy announcements by Chairman Feeroz Khan were publicly disavowed by Housing Minister David Lee. Each time, the minister's response followed the same pattern: he was "not aware."
The first was a plan to regularise approximately 1,000 squatters occupying $500 million worth of HDC units. The second was the introduction of new 10% and 5% transfer and inheritance fees on HDC properties. The third was the revelation that HDC carries $1 billion in debt with $600 million owed to contractors.
A chairman who makes policies the minister does not know about, or a minister who claims ignorance of policies made by his chairman - either scenario describes an organisation that is not being governed.
The Squatter Paradox
The squatter regularisation proposal was not a minor administrative matter. Approximately 1,000 households occupy HDC units without legal authority. The units have a combined value estimated at $500 million. Regularising them would mean formalising the occupants' status - effectively granting them rights to properties they accessed outside the allocation system.
The HDC has a waiting list of over 180,000 applicants. These are Trinbagonians who applied through the official process and are waiting for housing they were told would come through proper channels. Regularising 1,000 squatters while 180,000 applicants wait sends a specific message about which method of obtaining housing actually works.
Minister Lee said he did not know about the plan. The PM subsequently defended some elements while walking back others. The plan was placed "on hold." What happened to the 1,000 squatters in the interim - whether any were charged the new fees before the hold, whether any were evicted, whether the policy is dead or merely sleeping - is unknown.
The Fees That May Not Be Legal
The new transfer and inheritance fees - 10% on property transfers and 5% on inheritance - were announced by Chairman Khan and promptly disputed by Minister Lee.
Legal analysis published in the Express argued that HDC cannot lawfully impose these fees without ministerial approval and parliamentary scrutiny. If the analysis is correct, the fees were announced without legal authority, by a chairman acting beyond his mandate, and the minister responsible did not know.
Were any homeowners actually charged these fees before the policy was publicly walked back? The answer has not been reported. If fees were collected, under what authority were they collected, and will they be refunded?
$1 Billion in Debt
The revelation of HDC's debt load - $1 billion total, with $600 million owed to contractors - came from the chairman in a public statement. The Housing Minister's response was, again, that he was not aware.
A billion-dollar debt at a state housing agency is not a detail a minister can reasonably claim not to know. Either the information was not communicated up the chain - which is a governance failure - or it was communicated and the minister chose to claim ignorance - which is a different kind of failure.
Chairman Khan subsequently sought a $1 billion international loan in Q1 2026 to address the debt and fund new construction. Whether this loan was secured, and on what terms, has not been publicly reported.
An internal review identified 332 improperly extended contracts. Whether these have been re-tendered, and whether the contractors who received them have connections to political donors, are questions that have been raised but not answered.
Who Is Running HDC?
The governance structure is supposed to be clear. The minister sets policy. The board, through the chairman, executes it. The chairman reports to the board, which reports to the minister, who reports to the Cabinet and Parliament.
What the HDC situation reveals is a structure where the chairman announces policies the minister claims not to know about, the minister disavows them publicly, the PM partially reinstates them, and the affected citizens - the 180,000 on the waiting list, the 1,000 squatters, the homeowners facing new fees - have no idea what the rules actually are.
This is not a policy disagreement. It is an absence of governance. And it is happening at the agency responsible for housing in a country where the demand for affordable homes is one of the most urgent social issues.
The question is not whether Lee or Khan is right about any individual policy. The question is whether anyone is actually in charge of the HDC. The evidence, three public disavowals deep, suggests the answer is no.