Gonzales demands answers over reported $4.4B WiPay contract

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man and MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les is de­mand­ing an­swers from Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, over what he has de­scribed as a po­ten­tial mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar scan­dal in­volv­ing Wi­Pay and the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing the pro­cure­ment process be­hind a re­port­ed 10-year agree­ment val­ued at $4.4 bil­lion for the pro­vi­sion of dig­i­tal pay­ment ser­vices.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny, a State-owned en­ter­prise es­tab­lished to mod­ernise and in­te­grate gov­ern­ment pay­ments, had en­tered in­to arrange­ments with sev­er­al State agen­cies be­fore con­cerns emerged over its re­port­ed agree­ment with Wi­Pay. He said the com­pa­ny was launched in Au­gust 2025 with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mod­ernising, stream­lin­ing and se­cur­ing col­lec­tion and dis­burse­ment of gov­ern­ment pay­ments.