GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd’s deputy chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Rahim Mo­hammed, has been sent on paid ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing the out­come of a probe.

The com­pa­ny, in a ma­te­r­i­al change dis­clo­sure pur­suant to Sec­tion 64 (1)(b) of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act, 2012, and pur­suant to Rule 603 of the T&T Stock Ex­change Rules, yes­ter­day stat­ed, “Mr Rahim Mo­hammed, Deputy Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer – In­ter­na­tion­al Sales of An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed and its sub­sidiaries, has pro­ceed­ed on paid ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with ef­fect from Feb­ru­ary 26, 2026, un­til the com­ple­tion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Mo­hammed, a long-serv­ing ex­ec­u­tive who joined the com­pa­ny in 2017, was most re­cent­ly cred­it­ed with spear­head­ing the launch of the “STR8 VY­BZ” rum col­lec­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ja­maican dance­hall star Vy­bz Kar­tel.

Sources told the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day that Mo­hammed was stripped of his port­fo­lio, which in­clud­ed mar­ket­ing, se­cu­ri­ty IT, pro­cure­ment, and cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions and was left with in­ter­na­tion­al sales. It was a de­ci­sion that came in­to ef­fect at the end of Oc­to­ber, 2025.

Sources fur­ther said that last Thurs­day, they were in­formed that Mo­hammed’s del­e­ga­tion of au­thor­i­ty was sus­pend­ed with ef­fect from March 2, and the board of di­rec­tors would now be sign­ing off on goods and ser­vices.

Man­agers and ex­ec­u­tives have to seek board ap­proval when ap­ply­ing for va­ca­tion and sick leave, they added.

There were al­so pur­port­ed is­sues re­gard­ing the cost of over­seas trav­el and the fees as­so­ci­at­ed with pub­lish­ing an ar­ti­cle in a US pub­li­ca­tion, the lat­ter of which sup­pos­ed­ly dat­ed back to about 10 months, which re­port­ed­ly led to dis­agree­ments.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so reached out to the com­pa­ny’s chair­man, Gary Hunt, for com­ment.

In a What­sApp re­sponse he said, “The mat­ter in­volv­ing the paid ad­min­is­tra­tive leave of Deputy Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer – In­ter­na­tion­al Sales of An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, Mr Rahim Mo­hammed, is cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. At this time, the com­pa­ny is not in a po­si­tion to com­ment fur­ther or dis­close de­tails. The du­ra­tion of the paid ad­min­is­tra­tive leave will be de­ter­mined up­on com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The com­pa­ny’s web­site stat­ed Mo­hammed was ap­point­ed as deputy CEO in April 2025 and pre­vi­ous­ly held the po­si­tion of ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er – busi­ness ef­fi­cien­cy and shared ser­vices at An­gos­tu­ra Ltd from No­vem­ber 2023 to April 2025.

In this po­si­tion, he pro­vid­ed lead­er­ship and di­rec­tion to key de­part­ments, en­sur­ing align­ment be­tween strate­gic ob­jec­tives and op­er­a­tional ex­e­cu­tion, all aimed at fos­ter­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and cost op­ti­mi­sa­tion.

Mo­hammed man­aged strate­gic de­part­ments in­clud­ing mar­ket­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al sales, pro­cure­ment, sup­ply chain, in­ven­to­ry and lo­gis­tics, in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, project man­age­ment and pub­lic re­la­tions.

From May 2019 to Au­gust 2020, he stepped in­to the role of ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er – mar­ket­ing,

The lead­er­ship at An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd has un­der­gone sig­nif­i­cant changes over the last few years, par­tic­u­lar­ly in June 2025, when the en­tire board of di­rec­tors re­signed fol­low­ing a change in the gov­ern­ment.

In Au­gust 2024, the board moved then-CEO Lau­rent Schun to an “ad­vi­so­ry ca­pac­i­ty” based in Mi­a­mi for the re­main­der of his con­tract, which of­fi­cial­ly ex­pired in Jan­u­ary 2025.

Oth­er res­ig­na­tions in­clud­ed Melis­sa Sophia Charles-Bar­ber, who left as ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er of mar­ket­ing, ef­fec­tive Feb­ru­ary 26, 2024.

Union re­sponds

Pres­i­dent of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) and gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Michael An­nisette, said a sus­pen­sion “is not a dis­missal” and should not be read as a find­ing of guilt.

He stressed that both the SWW­TU- which rep­re­sents An­gos­tu­ra work­ers- and NATUC have con­sis­tent­ly de­fend­ed prin­ci­ples of due process, nat­ur­al jus­tice, and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty.

“We want to in­sist that nat­ur­al jus­tice, fair­ness, and the right to be heard has to be a fun­da­men­tal in­gre­di­ent in any mat­ters of this na­ture, be it from the work­flow or to the se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive lev­el, be­cause the right to nat­ur­al jus­tice must be re­spect­ed by every­body. The right for any­body to be heard in their de­fence has to be a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple that we have to con­tin­ue to re­spect and to prac­tice in a so­ci­ety where we talk about democ­ra­cy,” he added.