As the principal owners of Blue Waters remain in prison following their detention under Preventive Detention Orders (PDOs), state-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) has stopped serving the company’s bottled water on its flights.
Guardian Media was told the airline made the decision to discontinue using Blue Waters, which it has served on flights for over 15 years, last Wednesday.
Informed CAL sources said that the move was a significant one for the company because it caused a bit of chaos for the staff, as Blue Waters bottled water is served on all of the airline’s flights.
“Crews had to remove the labels of the water before they served. And some crews had to pour water into cups for customers,” an informed source said following the decision.
CAL is now serving Dasani, also a local bottled water by Caribbean Bottlers Trinidad & Tobago Ltd, which is a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company.
Guardian Media was told that the decision to switch water brands came from the board, which is chaired by Reyna Kowlessar. Neither Kowlessar nor other company officials could be reached for comment by Guardian Media on what triggered the immediate change by the company.
The snap decision meant that, unlike other procurement contracts which are listed on CAL’s website, given that it falls under the Office of Procurement Regulations (OPR), no tender was advertised or contract was issued on the company’s website as of yesterday.
CAL purchases large quantities of water from Blue Waters and according to payment documents obtained by Guardian Media, the company can easily spend close to half a million dollars a year on water. For instance, CAL spent $460,000 on water in 2024; it spent $264,000 on water from Blue Waters on some invoices seen.
Blue Waters, which has been around for the last 27 years, was established by Dominic Hadeed and is the dominant bottled water brand in T&T. It is exported to several islands across the Caribbean, including Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada and Guyana.
As of yesterday, Dominic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve, the owners of the company, remained in prison without any charges being laid. They are detained along with their relative, Star Sabga, as law enforcement launched an investigation into an alleged conspiracy to murder Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other senior members of her Cabinet.
On Friday, the couple filed for judicial review and a constitutional motion on their detention. Their lawyers claim their clients are being targeted by the Government, based on their ethnicity and an ongoing legal dispute over the termination of leases for State land.
According to legal documents, the couple also claimed that the move by the current Persad-Bissessar-led Government to extend the State of Emergency last month was unconstitutional, as it sought to target members of the Syrian/Lebanese community, a minority ethnic group and Dominic Hadeed personally.
They are of the view that Attorney General John Jeremie was referring directly to Dominic Hadeed during his Parliamentary contribution on the extension of the SoE. They believe that the allegations arose after Dominic publicly criticised Government policy in March and after the Cabinet sought to unilaterally terminate leases to State land held by his Blue Waters company in May.
“There is no and can be no evidence of any plot by the claimants to murder any person because there was no such plot. There is no basis for concluding that there was any evidence of any threat, real or perceived, against any public official,” their lawyers have claimed.
Attorneys for the Hadeeds also contended that Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander abdicated the exercise of his discretion in issuing the PDOs, as he failed to take into account relevant considerations, including the couple’s standing in the business community, their clean criminal records, the fact that they have three young children, the effect on their reputations and businesses and their medical conditions.
