Young leads Hilaire’s legal team in fight over ‘illegal’ firing

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, SC, is lead­ing the le­gal team for fired Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire.

On Wednes­day, Hi­laire reached out to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp, stat­ing that his at­tor­neys had is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the Cab­i­net (via the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary) con­cern­ing his “wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion as gov­er­nor.”

“I am hope­ful that the mat­ter will be ex­pe­di­tious­ly set­tled,” he had stat­ed.

Yes­ter­day, the for­mer gov­er­nor dis­closed that Young was lead­ing his le­gal team, which al­so com­pris­es An­tho­ny Bul­lock and Im­ran Ali.

Hi­laire al­so said that “a calm, prompt and com­plete res­o­lu­tion of the mat­ter would be in the best in­ter­est of the in­ter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic rep­u­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who said he had not yet seen the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter from Hi­laire’s team.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al added, how­ev­er, that the usu­al course of ac­tion is ex­pect­ed to be tak­en, “in­clud­ing replies.”

Hi­laire’s ap­point­ment was re­voked by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on June 24.

Gov­ern­ment has de­clined to give rea­sons for his ter­mi­na­tion. How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pub­licly stat­ed about three weeks pri­or that Hi­laire was re­fus­ing to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion on the top users of for­eign ex­change in the coun­try.

Fol­low­ing his dis­missal, Lar­ry Howai, a for­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance and ca­reer banker, was ap­point­ed as the new Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T, ef­fec­tive June 24, 2025.

Hi­laire was ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed gov­er­nor for a five-year term on De­cem­ber 23, 2015.

His ap­point­ment then fol­lowed the re­vo­ca­tion of his pre­de­ces­sor Jwala Ram­bar­ran’s con­tract.

Hi­laire’s first term end­ed on De­cem­ber 22, 2020 and was lat­er re­newed.

The for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, de­spite his im­pend­ing le­gal bat­tle, has hailed the work of the bank’s staff.

“I am priv­i­leged to have been part of the elite squad that is the staff of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go. They are su­per tal­ent­ed, su­per pro­fes­sion­al and work 100 per cent for the ad­vance­ment of our beloved na­tion,” he said.