Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned from the 51st reg­u­lar meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Lu­cia last week. She im­me­di­ate­ly went to in­spect the hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief sup­plies des­tined for Venezuela in the wake of the re­cent de­struc­tive twin earth­quakes.

Both of these ac­tiv­i­ties have shown that the Prime Min­is­ter is far more en­gaged with Cari­com and Venezuela than she was at the start of her tenure. This is an im­por­tant course cor­rec­tion.

I haven’t seen any­one from the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment ex­press­ing grat­i­tude or even ac­cep­tance of our aid, but they may be pre­oc­cu­pied with the re­lief ef­fort. Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez her­self has been fo­cus­ing on get­ting King Charles III to un­freeze Venezuela’s gold re­serves held at the Bank of Eng­land. She has al­so called for the lift­ing of oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions to ac­cess Venezuela’s as­sets in its own re­cov­ery.

Ini­tial in­ter­na­tion­al aid is es­ti­mat­ed at US$600 mil­lion, but the dam­age is es­ti­mat­ed to be about US$37 bil­lion. I think it couldn’t hurt to en­dorse this re­quest on pure­ly hu­man­i­tar­i­an grounds.

Are the cir­cum­stances the same as when the sanc­tions were in­sti­tut­ed in the first place? Can’t the use of the re­sources be mon­i­tored for re­cov­ery and re­lief pur­pos­es? Can they re­ceive the val­ue in ma­te­ri­als, ex­per­tise, med­i­cine, food and oth­er con­tract­ed sup­plies? Can’t the Ro­driguez ad­min­is­tra­tion be trust­ed to look af­ter its own peo­ple with­out cor­rup­tion?

Our Prime Min­is­ter’s at­ten­dance at the lat­est Cari­com meet­ing was less chilly than her pre­vi­ous en­gage­ment with Cari­com. She even got the oth­er Cari­com lead­ers to seek ad­vice from the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) on the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett. If the CCJ rules her ap­point­ment was le­git­i­mate, would our Gov­ern­ment ac­cept it?

This segues in­to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s trust in KCs.

Af­ter KCs Strang and Ead­ie were brought in to deal with the Hadeeds, an­oth­er British bar­ris­ter duo, An­tho­ny Peto KC and Thomas James Cleaver, have come to de­fend the State, specif­i­cal­ly to rep­re­sent the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in High Court and Court of Ap­peal pro­ceed­ings con­cern­ing un­ex­plained wealth, pro­ceeds of crime and re­lat­ed lit­i­ga­tion.

We can­not ar­gue with their pur­pose. Not in the slight­est. I have se­ri­ous doubts about their Forex fees and the prob­a­bil­i­ty that lo­cal SCs could “eat less food” and “give them per­for­mance” as good as the +3 KCs. Can lo­cal coun­sel be trust­ed? Are they less com­pe­tent?

The on­ly ra­tio­nale is the “Privy Coun­cil” readi­ness for the four bar­ris­ters. If our fi­nal court were the CCJ, would we spend less time and mon­ey for jus­tice? Or do our lo­cal lawyers al­so pre­fer to fly to Lon­don in­stead of dri­ving to Port-of-Spain?

All this means is that Blue Wa­ters is in “hot wa­ter.”

To­mor­row, the Court of Ap­peal’s emer­gency hear­ing will re­view the le­gal­i­ty of the de­ten­tion of the Hadeeds. We have heard al­le­ga­tions of death threats against the PM and oth­er min­is­ters by the Hadeeds, but oth­er in­for­ma­tion is al­so cir­cu­lat­ing.

Blue Wa­ters oc­cu­pies 50 acres out of a to­tal of 450 acres of prime agri­cul­tur­al land at the Or­ange Grove Es­tate, but the Gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed that lease to Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Ltd in May. Af­ter oc­cu­py­ing the site since 2007, Blue Wa­ters moved to sign three dis­tinct land leas­es for the en­tire 450 acres in 2022.

State bu­reau­cra­cy would keep the deal un­signed and un­set­tled. One would ask if the then-Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment had any sort of in­put in­to any as­pect of the leas­es. That gov­ern­ment has been re­moved, how­ev­er.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment de­tect­ed a last-minute rush by the pre­vi­ous PNM cab­i­net to ap­prove the land leas­es days be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. Mil­lions were thought to have been lost to the State due to an out­dat­ed val­u­a­tion, among oth­er mat­ters.

On June 23, Blue Wa­ters at­tor­neys sent for­mal pre-ac­tion pro­to­col cor­re­spon­dence to the Gov­ern­ment over the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the lan­guish­ing land leas­es. The fol­low­ing day, the Hadeeds were ar­rest­ed for the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot against gov­ern­ment mem­bers.

Is there more in the mor­tar? Is race/eth­nic­i­ty a fac­tor? “Land and prop­er­ty?” Why did the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment wait un­til the 11th hour to fa­cil­i­tate the leas­es? Did the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment think about Blue Wa­ters’ reg­u­lar work­ers?

Blue Wa­ters prod­ucts were pulled from CAL al­so. Has war been de­clared on the com­pa­ny? What will hap­pen to the lands? Is there a pre­ferred al­ter­na­tive leasee? Will this pre­cip­i­tate a sale of the com­pa­ny?

Are oth­er fac­tors like the rene­go­ti­a­tion of the LNG price im­pact­ing com­pa­nies like Nes­tle, as well as Methanex and Nu­trien? Will more be clos­ing up shop? What about em­ploy­ment? What about Forex?

The Gov­ern­ment cel­e­brat­ed the rais­ing of a US$800 mil­lion sov­er­eign bond in the US mar­ket. Most of these funds will be used to set­tle the prin­ci­pal on the old­er mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar bond notes that are reach­ing ma­tu­ri­ty. So we’re tak­ing a loan to pay our loans.

Will there be funds for salaries and back­pay? Will there be bailouts for SMEs? Will there be more pub­lic ser­vice po­si­tions? Or is it to pay fees for for­eign lawyers in pounds ster­ling?

At £1 to TT$10, I am re­mind­ed of that song by the Mighty Spar­row, Ten to One is Mur­der, as we won­der about the fees charged by the +3 KCs.

I hope we get our mon­ey’s worth.