Experts say Hadeed investigation unlikely to deter investors, for now

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

The de­ten­tion of busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife, Genevieve Hadeed, and her aunt, Star Sab­ga, has drawn mixed re­ac­tions from econ­o­mists and se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts over whether the high-pro­file in­ves­ti­ga­tion could af­fect in­vestor con­fi­dence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Do­minic Hadeed, the own­er of Blue Wa­ters Lim­it­ed, and his wife were ar­rest­ed last Wednes­day. Genevieve Hadeed’s 69-year-old ma­ter­nal aunt, Star Sab­ga, was de­tained on Thurs­day.

Their ar­rests come sev­er­al days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­dorsed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s warn­ing that no seg­ment of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing the so-called “one per cent”, was be­yond the reach of the law.

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Patrick Wat­son said if ev­i­dence ex­ists, those re­spon­si­ble should face jus­tice with­out de­lay.

“If there is wrong­do­ing, these peo­ple must be charged, and jus­tice must be swift with it. Let us hope that this is not just po­lit­i­cal gim­mick­ry,” Wat­son said.

He be­lieves the case is un­like­ly to dis­cour­age for­eign in­vestors, ar­gu­ing they are gen­er­al­ly more con­cerned about vi­o­lent crime and the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

“If I were look­ing to in­vest here, I would be much more con­cerned about the red tape that I have to go through. I would be much more con­cerned with the state of crime in the coun­try and, con­se­quent­ly, the safe­ty of my in­vest­ments.”

Wat­son added that vi­o­lent crime would weigh more heav­i­ly on in­vestors than al­le­ga­tions of white-col­lar crime.

“It is not this kind of white-col­lar crime that is go­ing to af­fect me. It is the vi­o­lent crime that you see in the pa­pers every day.”

He al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Blue Wa­ters’ mar­kets would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be af­fect­ed.

“I have no doubt that the peo­ple who drink the wa­ter will con­tin­ue to drink it, both at home and abroad.”

Econ­o­mist and for­mer min­is­ter in the min­istry of fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, ques­tioned the se­quence of the un­fold­ing case.

“Com­ing so soon af­ter John Je­re­mie’s com­ments in Par­lia­ment, it’s not clear whether it was be­ing vin­dic­tive or whether it is mo­ti­vat­ed by the rule of law,” Browne said.

He warned that the rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age could be sig­nif­i­cant, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a small busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“Peo­ple of­ten take the po­si­tion that where there is smoke, there is fire, so they must have ar­rest­ed them for a rea­son. That cre­ates rep­u­ta­tion­al im­pact.”

Se­nior As­so­ciate at the Cen­tre for Strate­gic and In­ter­na­tion­al Stud­ies, Pro­fes­sor Ivelaw Lloyd Grif­fith, how­ev­er, be­lieves a sin­gle in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing one busi­ness­man is un­like­ly to dam­age Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“One busi­ness­man, no mat­ter if he’s a big fish rather than a small fry, wouldn’t have an im­pact un­less there’s a trend of sim­i­lar episodes,” Grif­fith said.

“I wouldn’t view this one episode as cre­at­ing a trend.”

He urged pa­tience while in­ves­ti­ga­tors com­plete their work.

“The po­lice are do­ing their due dili­gence. The Gov­ern­ment is mak­ing trans­paren­cy a hall­mark of its en­gage­ment. I would just let in­ves­ti­ga­tions take their nor­mal course.”

Grif­fith said con­cerns over in­vest­ment should on­ly arise if sim­i­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­come com­mon­place.

“If you’ve got an­oth­er one, and then an­oth­er one, and then an­oth­er one sim­i­lar to this, then there’s rea­son to be con­cerned,” Grif­fith added.