SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) is mum on whether it has done busi­ness or fa­cil­i­tat­ed the sale of land leas­es in its Cou­va hous­ing de­vel­op­ments to Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment Fos­ter Cum­mings.

Last Thurs­day, a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Spe­cial Branch re­port on the busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties of Cum­mings was leaked.

The doc­u­ment con­tained sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions about Cum­mings’ busi­ness deals, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that he was “in con­trol” of three parcels of HDC land, two parcels along the South­ern Main Road and a third along Ibis Av­enue, Cou­va.

Cum­mings de­nied the al­le­ga­tions at a press con­fer­ence on Fri­day. He said the land at Ibis Av­enue did not be­long to him and the two parcels ref­er­enced on the South­ern Main Road were his fam­i­ly lands, which he claims to have pur­chased from the HDC.

Cum­mings ad­mit­ted to own­ing land at Bal­isi­er Av­enue, next to the Lisas Gar­den’s Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, but said he could not re­call whether the land be­longed to the HDC.

Guardian Me­dia ob­tained a copy of the deed for the prop­er­ty, which shows Cum­mings pur­chased it from a woman who had been grant­ed a 199-year-lease from the HDC. The sale in­cludes the lease pro­vi­sions.

Cum­mings al­so ad­dressed al­le­ga­tions that he used his in­flu­ence as a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial to sway the HDC to give con­tracts to Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, a con­struc­tion com­pa­ny that start­ed un­der his tenure. He claimed Pi­cal had done busi­ness with the HDC for years and said he had giv­en up all in­ter­est in the com­pa­ny in 2019 when he was ap­point­ed a Sen­a­tor.

On May 6, Guardian Me­dia sent sev­er­al ques­tions to the HDC’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer Dayne Lewis.

Lewis was asked whether Pi­cal was con­tract­ed to pro­vide garbage dis­pos­al ser­vices for an HDC de­vel­op­ment in Cou­va, how many years Pi­cal has been do­ing busi­ness with the HDC and whether Pi­cal was con­tract­ed to con­struct a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas. Guardian Me­dia al­so queried whether the HDC had any trans­ac­tions, in­clud­ing for land, with Cum­mings.

Dur­ing a phone con­ver­sa­tion short­ly af­ter the ques­tions were sent, Lewis said the re­spons­es to the ques­tions would be sent ‘short­ly’.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a sub­se­quent con­ver­sa­tion on May 6, Lewis said there was no ap­proval giv­en for him to send out the re­spons­es.

On Mon­day, Guardian Me­dia again reached out to Lewis, seek­ing an up­date on the re­spons­es. He did not re­spond.

On May 10, he replied, “Hey, my apolo­gies.”

How­ev­er, no oth­er re­sponse was giv­en.

On May 11, when prompt­ed again, Lewis said he was out of of­fice.

“We would be un­able to re­spond at this time,” he added.

Asked if any oth­er per­son would be able to re­spond, Lewis wrote, “You can con­tact min­is­ter’s of­fice.”

SEE AL­SO: Cum­mings, Lutch­me­di­al feud with law­suit chal­lenge

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS