Hosein: AG Office’s to probe land lease to ex-PNM treasurer

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein says the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice will probe the lease of Ch­aguara­mas state lands by Tem­blado­ra En­er­gy Lo­gis­tics Lim­it­ed (TELL), where for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) trea­sur­er Howard Chin Lee is a di­rec­tor—but Chin Lee has deemed Ho­sein’s state­ments on the lease mis­lead­ing.”

Chin Lee spoke yes­ter­day as he clar­i­fied Ho­sein’s claims re­gard­ing TELL’s lease­hold in­ter­est in state lands.

Giv­ing de­tails, Chin Lee said, “For avoid­ance of doubt, TELL did not pur­chase the lease from the T&T gov­ern­ment. Any sug­ges­tion that the gov­ern­ment sold this lease­hold in­ter­est to TELL at an un­der­val­ued price com­plete­ly mis­rep­re­sents the na­ture of the trans­ac­tion.”

Ho­sein, in yes­ter­day’s 2027 Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment, al­leged PNM man­age­ment of state lands in­volved “... friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers—why does Chin Lee get pref­er­en­tial treat­ment as PNM trea­sur­er com­pared to ex-Ca­roni work­ers, wait­ing 20-plus years for their leas­es?”

He cit­ed three parcels of Ch­aguara­mas land giv­en to Al­coa for its oc­cu­pa­tion years ago. He said it was done in such a way that they were not pay­ing a pre­mi­um, be­cause it was for baux­ite trans­ship­ments and T&T re­ceived rev­enue based on the vol­ume of baux­ite in­volved.

He said Al­coa, in wind­ing up op­er­a­tions, de­cid­ed to sell the com­pa­ny prop­er­ty—which stood on state lands—to Pier One Ma­rine Ltd (POML). Ho­sein said due to the sale, the PNM cab­i­net had to as­sign the in­ter­ests in the state lands to the new com­pa­ny be­cause they were buy­ing the plant. Be­tween March and June 2019, they sought to as­sign the lands to POML.

“But in 2021, a let­ter was writ­ten ask­ing that the in­ter­est be as­signed not to POML any­more, but Tem­blado­ra En­er­gy Lo­gis­tics Lim­it­ed—ten-plus acres of prime lands,” Ho­sein said.

“The prin­ci­pals of TELL hap­pen to be Howard James Chin Lee, Ann Marie Chin Lee, and com­pa­ny sec­re­tary, Hay­den John Adri­an Gads­by. So the lands had to be trans­ferred from Al­coa to TELL, which is re­al­ly Chin Lee. At that time, if I’m not mis­tak­en, Chin Lee was a for­mer PNM na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter—and at that time, sit­ting PNM trea­sur­er.”

Ho­sein claimed the lands were val­ued for $51 mil­lion, but, “they de­cid­ed to trans­fer the lands to Tem­blado­ra with­out ty­ing the lease to what it was—baux­ite—and tied the lease to no pre­mi­um.”

“What that means, when they cal­cu­lat­ed what the lease­hold in­ter­est is, they paid $51,000 to as­sign the in­ter­est in Tem­blado­ra for a $51 mil­lion prop­er­ty! Tem­blado­ra paid the state $51,000 to as­sign the in­ter­est for a $51 mil­lion prop­er­ty,” Ho­sein claimed.

He claimed TELL, on get­ting the state lease for $51 mil­lion, mort­gaged the lands for US$19 mil­lion.

“Did the for­mer, for­mer prime min­is­ter have any in­ter­est in that prop­er­ty?”

Ho­sein claimed when leas­es were be­ing pre­pared, pub­lic ser­vants in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s min­istry raised red flags.

He claimed the PNM cab­i­net said, “Not to wor­ry about that.”

He said the an­nu­al rent the com­pa­ny pays for the three parcels is $2,400, $172 and $10.

“It was a ‘fire sale’! The file on the is­sue is ready to go to the AG’s of­fice!”

Ho­sein said he was al­so send­ing a file to the AG’s min­istry re­gard­ing land north of Grand Bazaar in Val­sayn. He claimed it was al­lo­cat­ed to Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um for a gas sta­tion, but a 2023 Cab­i­net note re­scind­ed pre­vi­ous plans to give it to NP and a lease was done on April 8, 2025—20 days be­fore the April 28, 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion—to give it to a busi­ness­man who has busi­ness near Grand Bazaar.

Com­ment­ing on Ho­sein’s claims, Chin Lee con­firmed TELL is owned by POML. But he said TELL didn’t pur­chase the lease from the gov­ern­ment.

“The com­pa­ny ac­quired, through a pri­vate com­mer­cial arrange­ment with Al­coa In­ter­na­tion­al out of Pitts­burgh, all of its Trinidad as­sets, which in­clud­ed, in­ter alia, the as­sign­ment of the re­main­der of its in­ter­est in cer­tain Care­nege lands held un­der State leas­es go­ing back to 1947, plus the equip­ment, in­fra­struc­ture, build­ings, ware­hous­es, the jet­ty and the tank farm which were all used by Al­coa as part of its baux­ite tran­ship­ment fa­cil­i­ty,” he said.

“The State’s in­volve­ment was lim­it­ed to the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands ap­prov­ing the as­sign­ment and vari­a­tion of the ex­ist­ing 1947 lease to fa­cil­i­tate its con­tin­u­a­tion and the trans­fer of the lease­hold in­ter­est from Al­coa In­ter­na­tion­al to TELL. Im­por­tant­ly, the vari­a­tion changed the per­mit­ted use of the prop­er­ty from baux­ite-spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tions to en­er­gy-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, both of which are still in­dus­tri­al in na­ture, hence the rea­son why no pre­mi­um was re­quired for this trans­ac­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “Equal­ly im­por­tant is that this fa­cil­i­ty had been non-op­er­a­tional and moth­balled in a se­mi-aban­doned con­di­tion since 2008, when Al­coa In­ter­na­tion­al ceased T&T op­er­a­tions. Through sub­stan­tial pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment, TELL has re­vi­talised the fa­cil­i­ty, trans­form­ing it in­to a pro­duc­tive en­er­gy shore base and cer­ti­fied ISPS stag­ing port fa­cil­i­ty sup­port­ing T&T’s oil and gas in­dus­try.”

Chin Lee said a doc­u­ment Ho­sein al­lud­ed to—and a $51,705 pay­ment—is mere­ly a pro­cess­ing fee charged by the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to process con­sent.