JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Be­tween 2009 and 2023, more than $6.5 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), pro­vid­ing thou­sands of low-in­come fam­i­lies with an al­ter­na­tive source of in­come.

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­veal that a lack of po­lit­i­cal over­sight al­lowed con­tract­ed com­pa­nies, many with lit­tle trans­paren­cy, to earn be­tween $20,000 and $50,000 per month in man­age­ment fees. Al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism, favouritism, and kick­backs have per­sist­ed across suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments.

The 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port raised con­cerns about CEPEP’s fis­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty, not­ing that $499.2 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed with­out prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion.

“Doc­u­ments to sup­port three pay­ments to­talling $55.6 mil­lion to the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed were not pro­vid­ed for au­dit,” the re­port stat­ed.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion not­ed that CEPEP failed to sub­mit quar­ter­ly con­tract re­ports for the fi­nal two quar­ters of 2023.

A 2020 In­quiry to As­sess the Per­for­mance of CEPEP found $21 mil­lion un­ac­count­ed for in the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial records.

“CEPEP’s Board be­came aware of the sum through a let­ter from the En­vi­ron­ment Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, con­firm­ing the re­lease of $21 mil­lion to CEPEP in 2014 (un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment). In­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed a bank ac­count cre­at­ed by a for­mer board, used to with­draw the funds,” the re­port stat­ed.

Ahead of its pend­ing clo­sure, Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk ex­am­ined con­tracts award­ed to ma­jor PNM fig­ures and par­ty loy­al­ists be­tween 2021 and 2025.

Com­pa­nies linked to PNM fig­ures

Sure Serv Ltd—owned by Ruth Cum­mings, a rel­a­tive of PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings—re­ceived more than $1.3 mil­lion in CEPEP con­tracts be­tween 2021 and 2025, in­clud­ing over $450,000 in 2024–2025. The com­pa­ny’s sec­re­tary, Joel Ed­wards, served as CEPEP Chair­man from 2024–2025. Sure Serv al­so re­ceived more than $8 mil­lion in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­tracts over five years.

The com­pa­ny lists its ad­dress as the Metro Ho­tel in Cou­va, which it shares with oth­er firms con­nect­ed to Fos­ter Cum­mings, in­clud­ing Cum­mings and As­so­ciates, Kly­don En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed, and Austin Rogers Lim­it­ed.

Austin Rogers Lim­it­ed, owned by Austin Rogers, re­ceived $2 mil­lion in CEPEP con­tracts from 2021. Rogers de­nied cur­rent busi­ness ties to Cum­mings. The Metro Ho­tel is owned by Mukesh Ram­s­ingh, the PNM can­di­date for Pointe-a-Pierre in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

Fos­ter Cum­mings ac­knowl­edged know­ing the busi­ness own­ers but de­nied wrong­do­ing or that com­pa­nies re­ceived con­tracts af­ter his min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment.

“Many of the names I was asked about … I know them all. I en­tered full-time pol­i­tics in 2020, and mat­ters of busi­ness were left to my fam­i­ly to man­age,” Cum­mings said at a PNM press con­fer­ence.

Oth­er PNM-linked con­tracts

Ab­bike Con­struc­tion, owned by PNM MP Ka­reem Mar­celle and two rel­a­tives, col­lect­ed near­ly $2 mil­lion be­tween 2021 and 2025. Be­tween 2024–2025 alone, the com­pa­ny earned over $700,000. Mar­celle was ap­point­ed a Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man in 2024 be­fore win­ning the Laven­tille West seat in 2025.

Good­vibes & Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, owned by com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Ken­roy Dop­well, re­ceived ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.9 mil­lion over five years. Dop­well has pub­licly dis­tanced him­self from pol­i­tics and de­nied any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ad­di­tion­al PNM-linked com­pa­nies re­ceiv­ing CEPEP con­tracts in­clude:

• $2 mil­lion – Shi­at­su Gen­er­al Con­trac­tors (San Fer­nan­do Deputy May­or Pa­tri­cia Alex­is)

• $2 mil­lion – Gillian Lewis Con­struc­tion (Gillian Lewis, Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca con­stituen­cy chair­man)

• $2 mil­lion – Danavin Com­pa­ny (Alvin Reeves, for­mer San Fer­nan­do coun­cil­lor)

• $2 mil­lion – Dios Con­tract­ing Ser­vices (Mar­i­lyn Lewis-To­bias, Vice Chair, PNM Women’s League)

• $1.9 mil­lion – Trin­ba­go Land­scape Main­te­nance (Cur­tish Shade, for­mer Tabaquite con­stituen­cy chair­man)

• $1.9 mil­lion – Zo­ri­na’s Main­te­nance and Land­scap­ing (Alvin Mo­hammed, for­mer San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy chair)

• $1.7 mil­lion – De­bros Mar­ket­ing and Ser­vices (Nigel Cleghorn, PNM Vice Chair, San Fer­nan­do West)

• $1.5 mil­lion – B&S Con­struc­tion (Su­san Hong, for­mer Diego Mar­tin coun­cil­lor)

• $1.3 mil­lion – Ty­roshen Con­struc­tion (Stephen Harp­er, Bel­mont South coun­cil­lor)

• $1 mil­lion – Be­ta­clean Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (Akeeni Spencer, for­mer PNM Youth League Trea­sur­er)

• $1 mil­lion – Hilde­garde’s Pro­fes­sion­al Cen­tre Lim­it­ed (An­tho­ny Orosco, PNM ac­tivist, To­co/San­gre Grande elec­tion agent)

Be­tween 2021 and 2025, CEPEP con­tracts con­sis­tent­ly flowed to com­pa­nies con­nect­ed to PNM lead­ers and loy­al­ists. While some re­cip­i­ents de­nied wrong­do­ing, the lack of trans­paren­cy, au­dit gaps, and re­peat­ed re­ports of un­ac­count­ed funds raise se­ri­ous con­cerns about gov­er­nance, over­sight, and ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the pro­gramme.