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Court stops Brassington from blocking Pegasus drainage pipe
– Badal claims plan intended to “damnify” Pegasus hotel
Robert Badal
The High Court yesterday granted an injunction preventing Winston Brassington from blocking the main drainage of the Pegasus hotel.
The pipe in question drains Pegasus’s waste water through a canal that leads into the Demerara River. The pipe has been used for the past 43 years.
Brassington wrote the Pegasus in his capacity as Chairman of Atlantic Hotel Incorporated (AHI), the company created to build the Marriott hotel right next to the Pegasus hotel in Kingston, Georgetown.
Brassington, who also heads the government investment arm, NICIL, was demanding that the Pegasus Hotel “make the necessary arrangements” to have the flow of waste water from the hotel relocated.
The pipe is located underground. Brassington, in his letter, claimed that the canal in which the waste water from Pegasus flows is on the property owned by AHI. Brassington had threatened that the pipe would be removed by May 28, 2012, claiming that it is affecting the Marriott Hotel Project.
The government has not secured financing to build the hotel project, except for the tax payers money it intends to take out of NICIL.
In court documents, Pegasus owner, Robert Badal, said that the hotel has the right to drain water through the underground pipe and adjoining canal which falls within the land called Block Alpha.
This is the block which is owned by AHI for the Pegasus hotel. Pegasus said that its right to drain water through that means was part of a lease since 1967.
Badal said that the pipe and canal “was and is” the only means of draining waste water from the hotel. He also stated that the pipe and canal are the only means of draining rain water from the Pegasus hotel compound and surrounding areas.
Badal claimed that if the pipe is removed or the canal is blocked, the hotel would be unable to drain its waste water, and this could “damnify” the Pegasus.
Winston Brassington
The High Court yesterday granted an injunction against Brassington or AHI or their workmen from removing, destroying or interfering with the underground pipe.
Badal is being represented by lawyers Khemraj Ramjattan and Neil Persram.
In court documents, Badal noted that his acquisition of the Pegasus hotel in 2009 was the subject of a major political controversy in which the then Bharrat Jagdeo government had disagreed that he be the purchaser. The government holds four percent of the shares in the Pegasus hotel.
“The 96 per cent shareholder, however, proceeded to sell to me because of my bid. This resulted in disappointments and angst from the said government,” Badal stated in court documents.
The Pegasus hotel was built on a portion of state land, almost eight acres in size. The land was leased in 1967 for a period of 99 years. The lease will therefore expire 55 years from now.
Badal stated that he received the letter from Brassington to remove the pipe shortly after he publicly criticized the government for putting taxpayers’ money into financing the Marriott Hotel; something which Badal insists ought to be financed by the private sector.
Badal had also publicly called for Brassington to be removed as the Chief Executive Officer of NICIL.
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