Former AG denies Blue Waters’ land leases were rushed

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that she rushed the ap­proval of lease agree­ments in­volv­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed’s Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Ltd com­pa­ny short­ly be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, say­ing the mat­ter had un­der­gone years of re­view by le­gal of­fi­cers.

The re­sponse fol­lows a news­pa­per re­port that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion cab­i­net moved to re­verse pre­vi­ous de­ci­sions to grant leas­es to Blue Wa­ters Prod­ucts Ltd, with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­fer­ring the mat­ter to po­lice.

The dis­pute cen­tres on ap­prox­i­mate­ly 450 acres of land at the Or­ange Grove Es­tate in Trinci­ty.

The leas­es have been the sub­ject of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Blue Wa­ters and suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions since the com­pa­ny ac­quired Pern­od Ri­card’s lo­cal op­er­a­tions in 2007. The lands were pre­vi­ous­ly leased to Pern­od Ri­card in 1995.

The com­pa­ny’s own­ers, Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed, are cur­rent­ly de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders amid the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency. They were ar­rest­ed on June 24 at their West­moor­ings home, as po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ed al­le­ga­tions of a con­spir­a­cy to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, as well as al­leged of­fences un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions. Po­lice al­so ex­e­cut­ed a search at the Blue Wa­ters com­pound.

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle, Min­is­ter of Lands and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein in­formed Hadeed on May 5, 2026, that Cab­i­net had de­cid­ed to re­scind lease ap­provals made by the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Ho­sein had pre­vi­ous­ly raised the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the Oc­to­ber 2025 bud­get de­bate, al­leg­ing that the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion moved ur­gent­ly to ap­prove the leas­es at its fi­nal cab­i­net meet­ing be­fore the elec­tion. He claimed a for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice em­ploy­ee sent a voice note on the eve of the elec­tion in­struct­ing pub­lic ser­vants to pro­ceed with prepar­ing the leas­es, not­ing that Robin­son-Reg­is was at­tor­ney gen­er­al at the time.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Robin­son-Reg­is said when she as­sumed of­fice as at­tor­ney gen­er­al, she in­her­it­ed the mat­ter from for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour as one of sev­er­al pend­ing is­sues be­fore the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

She ex­plained that she was ad­vised that the mat­ter had been ac­tive since 2017 and that se­nior at­tor­neys with­in the Civ­il Law De­part­ment, for­mer­ly the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment, had raised con­cerns about the prepa­ra­tion of the leas­es.

Robin­son-Reg­is said Ar­mour had sought meet­ings with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to ob­tain an­swers to ques­tions raised by le­gal of­fi­cers.

“The Hon AG Regi­nald Ar­mour SC would have, af­ter meet­ing with said CSS at­tor­neys, re­quest­ed at least five times, for a meet­ing with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) to pro­vide an­swers in full to the CSS for clar­i­ty of their spe­cif­ic is­sues,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

“At no time did the COSL re­spond to these writ­ten and or oral in­vites (through her of­fice). This would have caused the Hon AG Regi­nald Ar­mour SC to once more have meet­ings with the lawyers at the CSS to see if there was any­one else who could have as­sist­ed. Dur­ing this time, at­tor­neys from the Min­istry of Agri­cul­tur­al Land and Fish­eries were al­so ques­tioned as to if, and how, they were able to as­sist the CSS with the anom­alies they point­ed to,” she con­tin­ued.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the mat­ter was even­tu­al­ly re­viewed by at­tor­neys from the Civ­il Law De­part­ment, the Lands and Sur­veys De­part­ment and as­so­ci­at­ed min­istries be­fore ad­vice was pro­vid­ed to Cab­i­net.

She said Cab­i­net re­lied on that ad­vice when ap­prov­ing the prepa­ra­tion of the leas­es.

“At no time would the Cab­i­net have act­ed ul­tra vires, as we would on­ly seek the ad­vice in such a mat­ter from the le­gal ex­perts with­in the Civ­il Law De­part­ment, as the prepa­ra­tion of leas­es such as these com­mer­cial con­tracts fall with­in their field.”

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so de­fend­ed the voice note ref­er­enced by Ho­sein, say­ing it was an ad­min­is­tra­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­vey­ing a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion.

“It is al­ways not­ed that the CSS is a chief le­gal of­fi­cer and can­not be in­struct­ed by any­one else but the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. There­fore, the voice note which the Gov­ern­ment speaks of is that mem­ber of staff sim­ply do­ing their job, as one of the du­ties of the Sec­re­tari­at staff was to pass on min­utes of Cab­i­net-ap­proved re­quests.”

She said at­tor­neys with­in the Civ­il Law De­part­ment had the au­thor­i­ty to refuse to pro­ceed with a mat­ter if they had le­gal con­cerns, ar­gu­ing that no at­tor­ney gen­er­al could com­pel them to act against their pro­fes­sion­al judge­ment.

“The ques­tions in my view should be di­rect­ed to the at­tor­neys at the CSS to find out the ad­vice they pro­vid­ed to the cab­i­net, as that is what would have been re­lied up­on,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is fur­ther re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the leas­es were rushed to ben­e­fit a PNM fi­nancier.

“It is by far mis­chie­vous­ly craft­ed by this Gov­ern­ment to put it in the pub­lic that this mat­ter was hus­tled to sat­is­fy a ‘PNM fi­nancer’ who, as far as I know, is not a so-called ‘fi­nancier’ when it took its due process in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the at­tor­neys at the CSS.”

She added: “It should be con­sid­ered that if this mat­ter was to be rushed, it would have been tak­en care of long be­fore 2025.

“There was no rea­son to has­ten the pace with a mat­ter such as this, as the CSS need­ed to be sat­is­fied that they had all their ques­tions prop­er­ly an­swered.”

Hadeed has chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­scind the leas­es, claim­ing in an af­fi­davit filed on Ju­ly 3 that the move was con­nect­ed to his de­ten­tion un­der the SoE.

He said Blue Wa­ters had been in dis­cus­sions with suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions for years and had in­vest­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in de­vel­op­ing the lands based on as­sur­ances that for­mal leas­es would even­tu­al­ly be grant­ed.