Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Two com­pa­nies led by the wife and daugh­ter of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings were award­ed $15.6 mil­lion in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­tract ex­ten­sions just be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, HDC doc­u­ments show.

The doc­u­ments, ex­am­in­ing the va­lid­i­ty of con­tract ex­ten­sions award­ed be­tween Oc­to­ber 2024 and May 2025, show that Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed and Rivulet In­vest­ment Group Lim­it­ed re­ceived six ex­ten­sions for waste re­moval at sev­er­al HDC sites.

All con­tracts were or­dered on April 16, 12 days be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed’s di­rec­tors, per com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments, are Juli­et, Abi­o­la, Shan­tal, and Oni­ka Cum­mings.

Juli­et Cum­mings is the wife of the op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor, while Abi­o­la Cum­mings is his daugh­ter. Guardian Me­dia was un­able to iden­ti­fy the re­la­tion­ship of the oth­er two peo­ple to Cum­mings.

Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed re­ceived five con­tract ex­ten­sions val­ued at $13.2 mil­lion, all for waste re­moval.

Cum­mings did not an­swer Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions about whether he felt there was a con­flict of in­ter­est in com­pa­nies linked to him ben­e­fit­ing from mil­lions in tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars while he was a sit­ting gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. Nei­ther did he an­swer whether, as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the PNM, he would be okay if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment did the same.

In­stead, he told Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk that all is above board.

“Both com­pa­nies men­tioned have been do­ing busi­ness with the gov­ern­ment for years, cer­tain­ly pre­dat­ing my Cab­i­net and par­lia­men­tary ap­point­ments. Ten­der­ing pro­ce­dures are presided over by the board and man­age­ment of the HDC, and one ex­pects that all le­gal re­quire­ments are ad­hered to in the award of every HDC con­tract, in­clud­ing those you have high­light­ed, which ap­pear to be ex­ten­sions of ex­ist­ing con­tracts,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s re­search, Pi­cal re­ceived HDC con­tracts as far back as un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, which served be­tween 2010 and 2015. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, both Pi­cal and Rivulet In­vest­ment have pro­vid­ed ser­vices for the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS) since 2019.

The doc­u­ments were first post­ed on­line by com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al and jour­nal­ist Ken Ali.

Con­tracts

• Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed’s HDC Waste Re­moval Con­tracts

1. $1,012,500 — Waste dis­pos­al at Ed­in­burgh South HDC.

2. $2,128,140 — Waste dis­pos­al at Ed­in­burgh South HDC.

3. $2,509,920 — Waste dis­pos­al at Lisa’s Gar­dens and Em­ba­cadere HDC.

4. $2,438,100 — Waste dis­pos­al at Mal­oney Gar­dens HDC.

5. $2,438,100 — Waste dis­pos­al at Roys­to­nia HDC, Cou­va North.

Ac­cord­ing to com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments, the list­ed di­rec­tors of Rivulet In­vest­ment Group Lim­it­ed are al­so Juli­et and Abi­o­la Cum­mings. The com­pa­ny re­ceived one con­tract for waste re­moval.

• Rivulet In­vest­ment Group Lim­it­ed’s HDC Waste Re­moval Con­tract

1. $2,414,475 — Waste dis­pos­al at Buen In­ten­to Phase 1 at Glen­roy HDC.

Ac­cord­ing to the HDC doc­u­ment, for all six con­tracts, there were no ten­der types, while the costs ex­ceed­ed the sim­pli­fied pro­cure­ment lim­it of $1 mil­lion.

Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed al­so re­ceived HDC con­tracts for grass cut­ting, garbage col­lec­tion, bulk waste col­lec­tion, and dis­pos­al ser­vices be­tween 2016 and 2017.

In 2022, the con­tracts were all ex­tend­ed to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

The con­tracts were as fol­lows:

• Grass-cut­ting for HDC’s Ed­in­burgh 500 (West) De­vel­op­ment.

• Grass cut­ting for HDC’s Cou­va Ex­change emp­ty lots.

• Garbage col­lec­tion at HDC’s Ed­in­burgh South Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment.

• Garbage col­lec­tion con­tract for Block 38-43, Ed­in­burgh South.

• Bulk waste col­lec­tion and dis­pos­al ser­vices at HDC’s 500 Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, Lisas Gardes and Em­ba­cadere De­vel­op­ment.

In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion

In keep­ing with the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, since com­ing in­to of­fice, Cum­mings 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 prop­er­ties and 12 prop­er­ties in 2021.  

Those prop­er­ties in­clude land in 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 build­ing in, South­ern Main Road, Cou­va; Aneisa St, Point Lisas, Rawl­ins Av­enue, Gas­par­il­lo; Bal­isi­er Av­enue, Lisas Gar­dens, Cou­va. 

Ac­cord­ing to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, as of No­vem­ber 2024, Cum­mings, a for­mer Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, failed to ini­tial­ly de­clare his in­come, as­sets, and li­a­bil­i­ties, and reg­is­tra­ble in­ter­ests for 2023.

Per­sons in pub­lic life are re­quired to file in ac­cor­dance with sec­tions 11(1) and 14 (1) of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act.

The Act states that any per­son who fails to file a de­c­la­ra­tion com­mits an of­fence and, up­on pros­e­cu­tion, is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $250,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for a term of ten years.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a per­son who fails to file a de­c­la­ra­tion of in­come, as­sets, and li­a­bil­i­ties and state­ment of reg­is­tra­ble in­ter­ests, in the par­tic­u­lar time­frame, with­out sub­mit­ting le­git­i­mate rea­son(s) to the Com­mis­sion in writ­ing, will have this in­for­ma­tion and his/her name pub­lished in the Gazette and in at least one dai­ly news­pa­per.

Cum­mings’ name was gazetted on No­vem­ber 19, 2024. How­ev­er, the for­mer min­is­ter said he is up to date with all his sub­mis­sions.

“As is my usu­al prac­tice, all doc­u­ments re­quired to be filed with the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion have been du­ly sub­mit­ted,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act Re­quest doc­u­ment, Fos­ter Cum­mings re­cused him­self from the Cab­i­net twice be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2015 and April 2023—once in 2020 and once in 2022. None of the re­cusals were re­lat­ed to HDC.

On April 22, 2021, Cum­mings re­cused him­self from a Cab­i­net meet­ing dis­cussing the is­suance of a gov­ern­ment-guar­an­teed loan on be­half of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (RDC) to meet ex­pen­di­ture for crit­i­cal projects for fis­cal 2020/2021 and to ful­fil pay­ment oblig­a­tions to con­trac­tors.

On Jan­u­ary 19, 2022, he re­cused him­self from the sub­mis­sion of the First Progress Re­port from the Con­sul­tant en­gaged by the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry for the pur­pose of fi­nal­is­ing the var­i­ous el­e­ments of mak­ing agri­cul­ture a tax-free sec­tor.

Ac­cord­ing to Cum­mings, how­ev­er, there was no need to re­cuse him­self.

“Mat­ters re­lat­ing to HDC’s ten­der­ing for waste dis­pos­al con­tracts are not dealt with by Cab­i­net; there­fore, the is­sue of my re­cusal does not arise,” he said.

Con­tro­ver­sy in pub­lic life

Cum­mings has faced con­tro­ver­sy since be­ing ap­point­ed as a min­is­ter in Au­gust 2020.

Short­ly af­ter his ap­point­ment, a sto­ry broke that he was pre­vent­ed from do­ing his mas­ter’s de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) be­cause of pla­gia­rism.

In a state­ment, he said a mis­take was made and a les­son was learnt.

“The cy­cle of re­silience—mis­take made, lessons learnt, fu­ture suc­cess ac­com­plished—is the prin­ci­ple I hold out to every young per­son as an in­valu­able life as­set, crit­i­cal for per­son­al de­vel­op­ment and ad­vance­ment. Don’t let your mis­takes win; learn your lessons and move on up with hu­mil­i­ty and per­sis­tence,” he said.

He has al­so been the sub­ject of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In Oc­to­ber 2021, the TTPS 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.

In May 2022, for­mer Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were on­go­ing.  At a me­dia brief­ing a month lat­er, act­ing Snr Supt as­signed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB), Deryck Walk­er, said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Cum­mings can take “from a day to ten years” de­pend­ing on what was un­earthed.  

That month, for­mer Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al re­vealed the con­tents of the re­port, al­leg­ing that Cum­mings’ con­tracts with the HDC were used to “con­duct un­scrupu­lous busi­ness”.  

Cum­mings’s at­tor­ney, in a le­gal let­ter, said the for­mer min­is­ter pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence to re­fute all the al­le­ga­tions.

In May 2023, in a let­ter to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher dat­ed May 3, Cum­mings’ at­tor­neys, led by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, asked that the TTPS pub­licly clear Cum­mings’ name.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er this year, Cum­mings was asked about the al­le­ga­tions and his con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion to sue the state over the leaked Spe­cial Branch Re­port. He said his rights were “in­fringed”.

The PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary sued both Lutch­me­di­al and the state for the leaked re­port.

The case against the state was filed last June.

Cum­mings’ lawyers claimed the TTPS was re­spon­si­ble for the “dis­clo­sure” of the re­port.

“The Claimant avers (and will in­vite the Court to so find) that ser­vants and/or agents em­ployed by the State and whom the De­fen­dant rep­re­sents were re­spon­si­ble, whether di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, for the unau­tho­rised dis­clo­sure and dis­sem­i­na­tion of the Spe­cial Branch Note and Mem­o­ran­dum.

“The Spe­cial Branch Note and Mem­o­ran­dum is self-ev­i­dent­ly pri­vate, con­fi­den­tial and se­cret, and at all ma­te­r­i­al times, the Claimant had a rea­son­able ex­pec­ta­tion that the fact of and the con­tents of the Spe­cial Branch Note and Mem­o­ran­dum were and would re­main pri­vate, con­fi­den­tial and se­cret,” his lawyers said.

Both cas­es are ex­pect­ed to go to tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo this year.

Cum­mings first en­tered Par­lia­ment as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor in 2008. In 2011, he served as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor for three years be­fore be­ing reap­point­ed sen­a­tor in 2015.

In Au­gust 2020, he re­ceived his first min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment as a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. Cum­mings was then as­signed, in April 2021, as the Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice.

The for­mer La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP lost his seat in the Gen­er­al Elec­tions to PNM’s for­mer con­stituen­cy chair­man, Phillip Watts.

Short­ly af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice as Sports Min­is­ter, Watts ac­cused Cum­mings of ‘reck­less mis­man­age­ment, squan­der­ma­nia and mis­use and abuse of pub­lic funds’ at the now closed Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice.

Watts ac­cused Cum­mings of hir­ing 61 peo­ple, PNM af­fil­i­ates, on short-term con­tracts be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tions with­out a prop­er process.

He re­ferred a file to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

Cum­mings de­nied the al­le­ga­tions. The for­mer min­is­ter was ap­point­ed as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and was re­elect­ed as the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary in its June in­ter­nal elec­tions.

PNM Cab­i­net con­tracts

and re­cusals

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi has al­so faced scruti­ny for his rel­a­tives re­ceiv­ing mil­lions in rent while he was a sit­ting gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and MP. In 2020, it

was re­vealed that Al-Rawi’s fam­i­ly re­ceived up­wards of $20 mil­lion a year in rent from the state for four rental prop­er­ties.

Al-Rawi’s wife, Mona Na­hous Al-Rawi, was list­ed as a di­rec­tor, at the time, for One Alexan­dra Place, which was rent­ed for the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry for $600,000 a month; #3 Alexan­dra Street, rent­ed for the Per­son­nel De­part­ment for $575,000 a month; 45A-45C St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, rent­ed for $159,000 a month; and Agra Street, St James, for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, rent­ed for $356,000 a month.

In May, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to re­view the gov­ern­ment’s prop­er­ty rental pol­i­cy, de­scrib­ing it as an ‘eat ah food’ pol­i­cy un­der the PNM.

She said more than $493 mil­lion was spent on rent in fis­cal 2024, while an­oth­er $500 mil­lion was spent on se­cu­ri­ty con­tracts.

Oth­er PNM HDC con­tracts

At least two oth­er com­pa­nies with links to PNM mem­bers al­so re­ceived HDC con­tract re­newals be­fore the April Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

T&T Land­scap­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, which lists its di­rec­tors as Nor­man Gabriel and Na­tal­ie Gabriel, the fa­ther and wife of well-known PNM fi­nancier An­drew Gabriel, re­ceived a waste re­moval con­tract at Oa­sis Greens HDC (Phas­es one to four) val­ued at $1.74 mil­lion.

It al­so re­ceived a grass cut­ting con­tract at Oa­sis Greens HDC (Phase five) worth $1.19 mil­lion.

Shi­at­su Gen­er­al Con­trac­tors Lim­it­ed, which lists San Fer­nan­do Deputy May­or Pa­tri­cia Alex­is as a di­rec­tor, re­ceived a grass cut­ting con­tract at Fair­field Hous­ing Es­tate (Phas­es 2 and 2A) for $1.07 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to the HDC doc­u­ment, there were no ten­der types stat­ed, and the costs ex­ceed­ed the sim­pli­fied pro­cure­ment lim­it of $1 mil­lion.