IT’S A PR STUNT!

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ridiculed Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of this year’s Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions, ac­cus­ing the com­pa­ny’s own­ers of pri­vate­ly us­ing racial slurs against East In­di­an peo­ple while pub­licly fund­ing one of the coun­try’s largest In­di­an cul­tur­al and re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so claimed that Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo had been duped in­to host­ing what she de­scribed as a “pub­lic re­la­tions ex­er­cise” to an­nounce the com­pa­ny’s Di­a­mond Spon­sor­ship.

In a point­ed re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she found the spon­sor­ship arrange­ment amus­ing, giv­en the re­cent his­to­ry be­tween her Gov­ern­ment and Blue Wa­ters own­er Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve.

“I find the irony of that spon­sor­ship hi­lar­i­ous. On one hand, the Hadeeds re­fer to us as stink­ing c*****s in pri­vate and on the oth­er hand they are pub­licly spon­sor­ing the stink­ing c****e re­li­gious events.”

The deroga­to­ry term was al­leged­ly used by Genevieve’s aunt, Star Sab­ga, in an in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the rel­a­tives that led to their de­ten­tions dur­ing the re­cent State of Emer­gency (SoE). The Hadeeds were the first to be de­tained, fol­lowed by Sab­ga.

The Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ued, “I couldn’t stop laugh­ing when I saw the spon­sor­ship and that Man­ga­roo was ac­tu­al­ly duped in­to host­ing a pub­lic re­la­tions press con­fer­ence to ac­cept it. Any­ways, I hope they have a won­der­ful event.”

Her com­ments fol­low yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment that Blue Wa­ters had in­creased its fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment to Di­vali Na­gar, be­com­ing an of­fi­cial Di­a­mond Spon­sor amid the with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship by sev­er­al State-linked com­pa­nies.

The de­vel­op­ment has at­tract­ed par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion be­cause of the re­cent con­fronta­tion be­tween the Hadeeds and the State.

The Hadeeds were ar­rest­ed on June 24 un­der State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions in con­nec­tion with an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. Sab­ga was de­tained the next day.

The Hadeeds were re­leased on Ju­ly 23 af­ter Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der re­voked their PDOs, hav­ing spent near­ly a month in de­ten­tion with­out be­ing charged. The Hadeeds have de­nied the al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot and pre­vi­ous­ly main­tained that their de­ten­tion was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

Sab­ga was re­leased from de­ten­tion at the Women’s Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, on Ju­ly 27 but placed un­der im­me­di­ate house ar­rest fol­low­ing a rul­ing by Jus­tice Vigel Paul. Her de­ten­tion or­der was al­so lat­er re­voked and she was re­leased from house ar­rest on Sep­tem­ber 10, short­ly be­fore the SoE end­ed.

Be­yond her crit­i­cism of the Blue Wa­ters arrange­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­fend­ed the with­draw­al of State spon­sor­ship from Di­vali Na­gar, in­sist­ing that tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey should be di­rect­ed to­wards the needs of cit­i­zens rather than pri­vate events.

Asked whether the NCIC, as a pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tion, should be less de­pen­dent on State fund­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter said event or­gan­is­ers should se­cure the nec­es­sary fi­nanc­ing be­fore pro­ceed­ing with their ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Tax­pay­er mon­ey is to be used for pay­ing hard­work­ing peo­ple their wages, buy­ing med­i­cines, pay­ing pen­sions etc. It’s not to be used to spon­sor pri­vate events and groups while hard­work­ing peo­ple are wait­ing for their salary in­creas­es and back­pay. That is my first pri­or­i­ty.”

Among the en­ti­ties no longer pro­vid­ing spon­sor­ship are bmo­bile, First Cit­i­zens Bank and Na­tion­al Flour Mills, while the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board and Caribbean Air­lines are al­so no longer par­tic­i­pat­ing.

The with­drawals have raised con­cerns about the fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the nine-night event, which Man­ga­roo pre­vi­ous­ly es­ti­mat­ed would cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5 mil­lion to stage.

The NCIC had ap­pealed for Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance, hav­ing re­ceived $500,000 to­wards last year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ar­gued that oth­er cul­tur­al and na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions had sim­i­lar­ly ex­pe­ri­enced re­duc­tions in State spon­sor­ship.

“There must be fair­ness. Pre­vi­ous­ly state com­pa­nies cut fund­ing for steel­bands, fetes, tas­sa, and car­ni­val events,” she said.

“There was even a re­duc­tion in fund­ing for Bap­tist day, In­de­pen­dence and Eman­ci­pa­tion events. It is on­ly right that they al­so re­duce fund­ing for Di­vali events be­cause every­one must be treat­ed with the same fair­ness.”

Her po­si­tion fol­lows Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that State re­sources could pro­vide greater val­ue if redi­rect­ed to­wards small­er, com­mu­ni­ty-based Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions rather than con­cen­trat­ed on one ma­jor event.

De­spite wish­ing the NCIC well with its cel­e­bra­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not com­mit­ted to at­tend­ing this year’s Di­vali Na­gar.

Asked di­rect­ly whether she would at­tend, the Prime Min­is­ter cit­ed a de­mand­ing sched­ule, in­clud­ing Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ings in An­tigua and oth­er com­mit­ments.

“I didn’t sched­ule any con­firmed at­ten­dance as yet be­cause that week is a hec­tic sched­ule with CHOGM in An­tigua and some oth­er events.”

Di­vali Na­gar 2026 is sched­uled to run from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 7 at the NCIC Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas.

Faris Al-Rawi, SC, one of the at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed, has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­ject­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion that the cou­ple pri­vate­ly used racial slurs against East In­di­an peo­ple.

Re­spond­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments about Blue Wa­ters’ spon­sor­ship of Di­vali Na­gar, Al-Rawi said he was mind­ful of on­go­ing lit­i­ga­tion in­volv­ing the cou­ple.

He said he would there­fore con­fine his re­sponse to the “sim­ple fact that the Hadeeds have nev­er used the racist phrase which the Prime Min­is­ter is said to have at­trib­uted to them.”

Al-Rawi al­so de­fend­ed the com­pa­ny’s in­volve­ment in the re­li­gious and cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions.

“For the record, I con­firm that Blue Wa­ters has been a spon­sor to the Di­vali Na­gar event for many years and was pleased to pro­vide more sup­port this year as re­quest­ed by the NCIC.”

He added that Blue Wa­ters re­mained com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing char­i­ta­ble, phil­an­thropic, sport­ing and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions as part of its cor­po­rate and civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.