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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Fos­ter Cum­mings writes to CoP about Spe­cial Branch probe

Foster Cummings writes to CoP about Special Branch probe: ‘Clear my name’

by

542 days ago
20230827

Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

As he seeks to clear his name, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, has de­tailed the con­tracts he got un­der while he was a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor.

His com­pa­ny, Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, was award­ed six con­tracts, in­clud­ing two from Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion( HDC) for grass cut­ting, two for garbage col­lec­tion and two for bulk waste col­lec­tion and dis­pos­al ser­vices. The con­tracts which were award­ed be­tween 2016 to 2017, and were all ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

A leaked Spe­cial Branch re­port last year al­leged that Cum­mings had con­duct­ed un­scrupu­lous busi­ness­es through two com­pa­nies con­tract­ed to the HDC. The min­is­ter has now turned to for­mer UNC At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj SC to plead his case.

On May 3, his at­tor­neys, Ma­haraj, Ron­nie Bisses­sar and Varin Gopaul-Go­sine, wrote to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) ask­ing that they pub­licly clear his name fol­low­ing the leak which was first made pub­lic by Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jyan­ti Lutch­me­di­al and lat­er con­firmed as au­then­tic by then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob.

In the let­ter to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Cum­mings’ at­tor­neys said that there is “sub­stan­tial in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion” in the re­port. They asked that the TTPS ex­punge the en­tire re­port and make pub­lic its de­ci­sion so that Cum­mings can be vin­di­cat­ed.

The at­tor­ney said the con­tracts were award­ed by HDC be­cause the con­trol of grass-cut­ting, and garbage col­lec­tion had not been hand­ed over to the re­spec­tive re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

Cum­mings is the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Min­is­ter re­sponds to al­le­ga­tions

In their sev­en-page let­ter, Cum­mings’ at­tor­neys ac­knowl­edged that the Spe­cial Branch re­port was au­then­tic. They said since the re­port was made pub­lic it was in­cum­bent to have the in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion cor­rect­ed.

The three-page Spe­cial Branch re­port dat­ed June 5, 2019, and signed by then As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Pamela Schullera Hinds, was en­ti­tled “Fos­ter CUM­MINGS-Ac­tiv­i­ties of.”

The let­ter from the at­tor­neys quotes sec­tion 36(1) of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act which al­lows a per­son who is ag­griev­ed by in­for­ma­tion from a state en­ti­ty to pro­vide cor­rect in­for­ma­tion. The in­di­vid­ual must write to the en­ti­ty pro­vid­ing the cor­rect in­for­ma­tion.

Here is how Cum­mings re­spond­ed:

Al­le­ga­tion 1 The re­port iden­ti­fied Cum­mings as liv­ing up­stairs a restau­rant at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va.

Re­sponse: The ad­dress was con­firmed but the at­tor­neys said it was in a su­per­mar­ket.

Al­le­ga­tion 2: Cum­mings “con­duct­ed un­scrupu­lous busi­ness” through two com­pa­nies, Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed and Cyldeon En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (CEL).

Re­sponse: CEL was not list­ed on the Com­pa­ny’s Reg­istry. Cum­mings de­nied that he con­duct­ed un­scrupu­lous busi­ness­es through Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, CEL or HDC.

Al­le­ga­tion 3: Cum­mings “claimed” three parcels of land be­long­ing to the HDC at South­ern Main Road and Ibis Av­enue, Cou­va.

Re­sponse: Cum­mings bought the par­cel of land on Bal­isi­er Street, Point Lisas, while his wife, Juli­et Cum­mings, pur­chased a par­cel of land from the HDC in 2012 and an­oth­er prop­er­ty from Mar­i­ha Shinile Salazar at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va.

Al­le­ga­tion 4: Cum­mings “used his in­flu­ence” to sub-con­tract a garbage col­lec­tion con­tract from HDC and his com­pa­nies were award­ed con­tracts to main­tain va­cant HDC prop­er­ties in Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas. Re­sponse: Af­ter a fair and trans­par­ent bid­ding process, Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, which was pre-ap­proved in HDC’s reg­istry, was award­ed work.

The con­tracts:

The grass-cut­ting con­tract to Pi­cal for HDC’s Ed­in­burgh 500 (West) De­vel­op­ment was award­ed on Au­gust 30, 2016, and ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

The grass cut­ting for HDC’s Cou­va Ex­change emp­ty lots was award­ed on the same day and con­tin­ues to De­cem­ber 31, 2024, as well.

The con­tract for garbage col­lec­tion for Block 7-20 at HDC’s Ed­in­burgh South Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment was award­ed on June 24, 2016, and ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

The garbage col­lec­tion con­tract for Block 38-43 Ed­in­burgh South was award­ed the same day and ex­tend­ed to the same pe­ri­od. The HDC, in a let­ter dat­ed March 21, 2022, ex­tend­ed the con­tracts.

Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed was al­so award­ed bulk waste col­lec­tion and dis­pos­al ser­vices at HDC’s 500 Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, Point Lisas Gardes and Em­ba­cadere De­vel­op­ment. The Ed­in­burgh 500 con­tracts were award­ed on Au­gust 28, 2017, and May 7, 2016, re­spec­tive­ly and ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

“Our client is un­able to com­ment on any con­tracts pur­port­ed­ly award­ed by the HDC to CEL save and ex­cept to state that no such reg­is­tered com­pa­ny is in ex­is­tence. Fur­ther, sev­er­al oth­er con­trac­tors pro­vide ser­vices for the HDC in the Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas ar­eas,” the let­ter said.

Al­le­ga­tion 5: The com­pa­ny placed a “re­put­ed drug deal­er” and leader of the Rail­way Road Gang as a sub-con­trac­tor for sev­er­al of its sites al­though he was not list­ed as a reg­is­tered busi­ness own­er.

Re­sponse: Pi­cal nev­er hired the re­put­ed gang­ster.

The at­tor­neys said if the po­lice had spo­ken to Cum­mings, he would have cleared his name be­fore it was shared, and the dam­age suf­fered would have been avoid­ed. They said Cum­mings re­serves his right to take what­ev­er reme­dies in law he sees fit.

Six days af­ter the let­ter was sent, Hare­wood-Christo­pher is­sued a mem­o­ran­dum with the sub­ject “Se­crete and Con­fi­den­tial Spe­cial Branch Re­port in re­spect of Mr Fos­ter Cum­mings MP. Cor­rec­tion of Per­son­al In­for­ma­tion Pur­suant to Sec­tion 36 of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act.” She asked to be “kind­ly ap­prised of any up­dates in this mat­ter.”

For­tunes and mis­for­tunes

In keep­ing with the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, since com­ing in­to of­fice, the min­is­ter has de­clared his as­sets. His prop­er­ties in­creased over the years be­gin­ning in 2018/2019, when he de­clared nine prop­er­ties. In 2020, he de­clared two more and in 2021, 12 prop­er­ties. Those prop­er­ties in­clude land at Fa­bi­en Street, Gas­par­il­lo; Gu­ra­hoo Trace, Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas; Light­house Av­enue, Sig­nal Hill, To­ba­go; Ex­change Es­tate, Cou­va; In­di­an Trail, Cou­va; Lisas Gar­dens hous­ing project, Cou­va and Sher­wood Park, Carn­bee, To­ba­go.

He al­so has land and build­ings at South­ern Main Road, Cou­va; Aneisa St., Point Lisas, Rawl­ins Av­enue, Gas­par­il­lo; Bal­isi­er Av­enue, Lisas Gar­dens.

Af­ter the Spe­cial Branch re­port was shared, the then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Bu­reau (FIB) was in­ves­ti­gat­ing Cum­mings.

In Oc­to­ber 2021, the po­lice ap­plied for pro­duc­tion or­ders for in­for­ma­tion from sev­er­al fi­nan­cial en­ti­ties as they probed pay­ments to com­pa­nies for­mer­ly linked to the min­is­ter. Cum­mings’s at­tor­neys ob­ject­ed to the po­lice’s ap­pli­ca­tion and sus­pend­ed the pro­duc­tion or­ders. Last Oc­to­ber, the judge hear­ing the case ruled against the ob­jec­tion by Cum­mings’s lawyers.

In an in­ter­view in May last year, Ja­cob said the FIB were con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. At a me­dia brief­ing a month lat­er act­ing Snr Supt as­signed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB) Deryck Walk­er said the in­ves­ti­ga­tions could take “from a day to ten years” de­pend­ing on what was un­earthed.

“Time is rel­a­tive, it de­pends on the com­plex­i­ty of that in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and it is dif­fi­cult to set a time to fin­ish any par­tic­u­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tion. As I said, I will not dis­cuss the par­tic­u­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tions and will speak in gen­er­al terms,” he said.

In Ju­ly 2021, at­tor­neys Asha Watkins-Montserin and Keisha Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, who were rep­re­sent­ing Cum­mings, de­nied their client was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. At the time they were re­spond­ing to ru­mours that the home of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter had been searched by the po­lice.

The lawyers said in a state­ment: “The ru­mours be­ing per­pet­u­at­ed are false, mis­lead­ing and are de­signed by oth­ers to at­tempt to dam­age his rep­u­ta­tion. Notwith­stand­ing, Min­is­ter Cum­mings re­mains com­mit­ted to serv­ing his coun­try, his con­stituents and his min­istry with un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion de­spite these un­found­ed lies. The min­is­ter re­bukes these at­tempts to ma­lign his char­ac­ter. Fur­ther­more, he has not been in­formed that he is the sub­ject of any in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice or any oth­er au­thor­i­ties.”

The Sun­day Guardian was un­able to get an up­date on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion by press time. Cum­mings said the re­quest to clear his name was in the hands of his at­tor­neys and as such he had no com­ment to make.

AG vs AG

Cum­mings sued Lutch­me­di­al for defama­tion and lat­er filed an in­junc­tion to stop her from re­peat­ing the claims as well as speak­ing on the fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances of him and his fam­i­ly af­ter she spoke about the con­tents of the re­port.

At first, he hired the firm of Farai An­dre Hove Ma­sai­sai while Lutch­me­di­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan. Cum­mings changed his at­tor­ney mid-way and re­tained Ma­haraj but Lutch­me­di­al’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­mains Ram­lo­gan.

Both Ma­haraj and Ram­lo­gan both served as AGs for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC.

On June 10, Jus­tice Na­dia Kan­ga­loo dis­missed Cum­mings’ ap­pli­ca­tion for the in­junc­tion but al­lowed the defama­tion law­suit to con­tin­ue.

Kan­ga­loo found that based on the ev­i­dence, Lutch­me­di­al took a rea­son­able, me­thod­i­cal, rea­soned and care­ful ap­proach and ex­er­cised due dili­gence in con­firm­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of the doc­u­ments.

Af­ter los­ing the in­junc­tion, Cum­mings ap­pealed but lat­er with­drew his ap­pli­ca­tion. The sub­stan­tive mat­ter of defama­tion is due to come up for case man­age­ment in Oc­to­ber.

Days af­ter Lutch­me­di­al spoke about the doc­u­ment, Cum­mings and his fam­i­ly re­ceived coun­selling, ac­cord­ing to his at­tor­neys in their pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter. Cum­mings al­so claimed he pro­vid­ed all of the “ev­i­den­tiary facts” to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley af­ter the claims were made.

Asked about the mat­ter at a me­dia con­fer­ence a week lat­er, Row­ley said Spe­cial Branch re­ports should be tak­en with a bit of salt. He said he was pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion that con­tra­dict­ed the claims in the re­port and it was up to the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the claims and pro­duce the ev­i­dence to sup­port it.

About Fos­ter Cum­mings (put in box)

Cum­mings en­tered the Par­lia­ment as a tem­po­rary Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor on Jan­u­ary 15, 2008. In 2011, he served as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor for three years and was reap­point­ed as a Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor from Sep­tem­ber 2015 to De­cem­ber 2019.

He be­came the Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment on Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, and months lat­er, on Au­gust 10, won the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro seat in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Cum­mings was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port on Au­gust 19, 2020. He was re­as­signed as the Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice in April 2021.


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