Carisa Lee

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi says the Gov­ern­ment's hands are tied re­gard­ing calls from Trinci­ty Mall ten­ants for help with rental fees dur­ing the COVID-19 shut­down.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said a liq­uida­tor is in charge of the mall and Gov­ern­ment can­not dic­tate what is done, not­ing there are law­ful steps and a process that has to be fol­lowed.

CL Fi­nan­cial's as­sets have been in the hands of liq­uida­tor Grant Thorn­ton since 2017 af­ter it was un­able to re­pay Gov­ern­ment for its 2009 bailout. The HCL Group, a sub­sidiary of CL Fi­nan­cial, owns Trinci­ty Mall and oth­ers, in­clud­ing One Wood­brook Place One Plaza, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall and Val­park Shop­ping Plaza.

But Al-Rawi said oth­er malls were us­ing sim­i­lar rent col­lec­tion poli­cies at this time and ques­tioned why UNC MP Dr David Lee had sep­a­rat­ed those land­lords from the Trinci­ty Mall land­lords. He said Lee was mis­guid­ing and ex­ploit­ing the ten­ants dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Allyson West said she could not say what po­si­tion Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert could take on the is­sue. How­ev­er, she too held the view Lee was mis­lead­ing ten­ants by sug­gest­ing Gov­ern­ment could di­rect­ly in­ter­vene be­cause a liq­uida­tor was in charge.

Trinci­ty Mall ten­ants are seek­ing Gov­ern­ment help af­ter they were told by man­age­ment they will have to pay full rent for March de­spite los­ing busi­ness due to the shut­down mea­sures.

"Re­mem­ber March is right af­ter Car­ni­val, so it would

be a lit­tle slow be­cause Car­ni­val and lent sea­son and thing," Asim Williams, own­er of Phat's In­ter­na­tion­al Styles, asked Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day.

"Why must we have to pay for the whole of March when you know that you closed the cin­e­mas and food court and no­body was com­ing in the mall?"

An­oth­er ten­ant who did not want to be named added, "By the time the mid­dle of the month when they found the first pos­i­tive case peo­ple stopped com­ing to the mall."

The Trinci­ty Mall ten­ants said they have al­so been asked to pay their com­mon area main­te­nance fee for April and May, a fig­ure which will amount to al­most half of the rent. These fees in­clude charges for clean­ing up com­mon ar­eas, se­cu­ri­ty for the prop­er­ty, prop­er­ty tax­es, prop­er­ty in­sur­ance, re­pairs and main­te­nance.

"Bear in mind the mall closed we doh need any com­mon area space, we doh need jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices. I feel­ing as a ten­ant that the whole mall have to pay for the stores that open to op­er­ate," Williams said.

The ten­ants said they just can­not make the pay­ments and called on man­age­ment to "have a heart". Some of them said they have had to re­trench work­ers be­cause of the lack of in­come and fore­see many busi­ness­es clos­ing down per­ma­nent­ly be­cause they can­not af­ford the rent.

"Many busi­ness­es will move out. I had to ter­mi­nate my staff, I am un­able to con­tin­ue keep­ing them on a pay­roll," a ten­ant said.

An­oth­er Trinci­ty ten­ant said they are hop­ing Gov­ern­ment can as­sist by re­duc­ing the amount of rent they are be­ing asked to pay.

"The same way how the coun­try was there for HCL when they were in dire need for the Gov­ern­ment to give them a bailout, which come down to tax­pay­ers, now the land­lord need to help back their ten­ants," Williams said.

Over the week­end, Lee called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene and as­sist Trinci­ty Mall ten­ants. He said the Gov­ern­ment, by virtue of ac­quir­ing the as­sets of CLI­CO, con­trols Trinci­ty Mall, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall and One Wood­brook Place, which are de­mand­ing rent from ten­ants de­spite the cri­sis.

The HCL Group owns malls such as One Wood­brook Place One Plaza, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, Val­park Shop­ping Plaza and Trinci­ty Mall. The HCL Group of Com­pa­nies is the re­al es­tate as­pect of CL Fi­nan­cial hold­ings, which was the largest pri­vate­ly held con­glom­er­ate in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore it col­lapsed forc­ing Gov­ern­ment to bail it out in 2009.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to com­pa­nies that rent from oth­er malls, in­clud­ing Movie Towne and C3 Cen­tre and Movi­eTowne.

At Movie Towne, the com­pa­nies said they were giv­en a 30 per cent dis­count for March and April. The C3 ten­ants said they have been asked to pay rent in full for the month of March and com­mon area main­te­nance charges for April.

The ten­ants are ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to fol­low Cana­da’s lead by pro­vid­ing rent re­lief to busi­ness­es that can’t af­ford to pay their land­lords at a time when their op­er­a­tions are se­ri­ous­ly cur­tailed or shut down due to COVID-19.

An email was sent to HCL Group of Com­pa­nies but up un­til press time yes­ter­day there was no re­sponse. Calls to Grant Thorn­ton al­so went unan­swered.