SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer (CEO) of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) Haz­ar Ho­sein has re­signed af­ter serv­ing the state-owned agency for 26 years.

Ho­sein, who served as LSA’s CEO from 2012, re­signed from the com­pa­ny on Au­gust 25, 2025. He has been em­ployed at the LSA since 1999.

A source at the LSA said staff were shocked by Ho­sein’s sud­den de­par­ture from the agency af­ter work­ing for al­most three decades.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, the mo­ment the top­ic of res­ig­na­tion arose, Ho­sein stepped down.

“He was not pre­pared to put up with any non­sense and im­me­di­ate­ly ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion,” the source said.

“Haz­ar is a straight­for­ward, no-non­sense type of guy. It was re­al­ly sad to see him leave. He played a piv­otal role in LSA. We will sure­ly miss him.”

Shel­ley Sul­tan­ti-Khan is cur­rent­ly hold­ing on as LSA’s act­ing CEO un­til the sub­stan­tive post is filled by the Gov­ern­ment.

Be­fore join­ing LSA, Ho­sein gave 14 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice as a pub­lic ser­vant.

One of the po­si­tions he held was an ac­count­ing ex­ec­u­tive in Sug­ar In­dus­try Labour Wel­fare. Hav­ing a back­ground in fi­nance, Ho­sein was ap­point­ed a di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens Bank from 2014 to 2016.

LSA shifts min­istries

On Oc­to­ber 4, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­aligned the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of sev­er­al of her min­is­ters, al­most six months af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion.

The PM ex­pand­ed MP Sad­dam Ho­sein’s port­fo­lio from Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs to Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Lands and put the LSA un­der his re­mit.

The LSA was pre­vi­ous­ly un­der the purview of Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram, whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ties have been less­ened.

Un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment, LSA fell un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.

In Jan­u­ary, Ho­sein told a Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee meet­ing that one of the weak­ness­es of the LSA was a lack of con­tain­ment leg­is­la­tion to deal with fur­ther squat­ting, stat­ing that the agency had sub­mit­ted its rec­om­men­da­tions for amend­ments to the leg­is­la­tion since 2017.

The LSA’s man­date is to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty of tenure to cer­tain squat­ters in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the State Land (Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Tenure) Act, 25 of 1998.

There are 250 squat­ting set­tle­ment sites on state lands in T&T with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60,000 squat­ting fam­i­lies.

Ho­sein and his son, Mikhail Ho­sein, al­so own HMS Mo­tors Ltd, which sells high-end ve­hi­cles in Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas..

Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, Ho­sein re­fused to com­ment.

Spate of ex­its

Fol­low­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion on April 28, 2025, a num­ber of chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers and se­nior of­fi­cials have de­part­ed state-owned en­ti­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Among them:

* Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA): Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day was fired as CEO in June 2025, just six months af­ter his ap­point­ment. He was re­placed by act­ing CEO Jee­van Joseph.

* Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um: Erik Kesku­la stepped down as CEO of the state-owned oil com­pa­ny in Ju­ly 2025, with his res­ig­na­tion tak­ing ef­fect on Sep­tem­ber 30. He has been re­placed by act­ing CEO Ker­ry Ram­per­sad.

* Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT): Kent West­ern re­signed as CEO in Ju­ly 2025. He was im­me­di­ate­ly re­placed by Keino Cox, who was ap­point­ed act­ing CEO.

* First Cit­i­zens Bank: It was re­port­ed that Karen Dar­basie, group CEO, had re­signed her post, but she had pro­ceed­ed on va­ca­tion leave in Au­gust 2025, months ahead of her re­tire­ment from the com­pa­ny.

* Na­tion­al En­er­gy (NE): It was an­nounced two weeks ago that Ver­non Pal­too, NE pres­i­dent, has pro­ceed­ed on pre-re­tire­ment leave af­ter more than two decades at the state-owned en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ta­tor. He con­firmed that he went on leave on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2025, ahead of his of­fi­cial re­tire­ment in April 2026.

* Caribbean Air­lines (CAL): Garvin Med­era, CEO, en­tered in­to a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment with the com­pa­ny in Sep­tem­ber, with his ex­it to be ef­fec­tive in Oc­to­ber 2025. The news came af­ter a board shake-up and an ul­ti­ma­tum from Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the air­line’s man­age­ment.