Last Sun­day, Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk re­vealed that five com­pa­nies linked to for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings re­ceived more than $100 mil­lion in state con­tracts from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) be­tween 2015 and 2025.

That re­port­ing fol­lowed ear­li­er find­ings that two com­pa­nies owned by Cum­mings’ wife and daugh­ter—Pi­cal Ser­vices and Rivulet In­vest­ments—se­cured $15.6 mil­lion in con­tract ex­ten­sions ahead of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

At the same time, Cum­mings’ re­al es­tate port­fo­lio ex­pand­ed, as re­flect­ed in In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion fil­ings. This in­clud­ed two prop­er­ties ob­tained from the HDC.

Now, fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion has un­cov­ered a prop­er­ty trans­ac­tion dur­ing COVID-19 in­volv­ing the Cum­mings fam­i­ly. The deal rais­es ques­tions about the HDC’s due dili­gence un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in al­lo­cat­ing prop­er­ties in­tend­ed for low-in­come fam­i­lies.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Juli­et Cum­mings, the wife of PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, pur­chased a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) prop­er­ty (land) from a rel­a­tive for $100,000.

A three-storey struc­ture was lat­er ob­served on the Bal­isi­er Av­enue, Cou­va, site. This, ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments seen by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, is at odds with HDC reg­u­la­tions and Town and Coun­try Plan­ning ap­provals, where on­ly a res­i­den­tial build­ing was per­mit­ted.

The prop­er­ty (land) was pur­chased from a rel­a­tive, Mari­ah Salazar, who is al­so a for­mer di­rec­tor of a com­pa­ny owned by Juli­et Cum­mings. Salazar had brought the prop­er­ty un­der a lease-pur­chase agree­ment with HDC for $51,640 in 2017. In 2021, it was sold to Cum­mings for $100,000—on­ly 15 per cent of its $670,000 val­u­a­tion, as as­sessed by sur­vey­or Charles Lawrence.

While the HDC had a con­trac­tu­al op­tion to re­pur­chase the prop­er­ty from Salazar, which would max­imise a re­turn on in­vest­ment for the State com­pa­ny, the cor­po­ra­tion did not ex­er­cise this op­tion.

To­day, a com­mer­cial build­ing stands on the site, where the Cum­mings fam­i­ly al­ready owns mul­ti­ple prop­er­ties, de­spite ap­provals say­ing a res­i­den­tial build­ing ought to be con­struct­ed.

Guardian Me­dia could not find any ob­jec­tion on HDC records for Cum­mings to pur­chase the prop­er­ty at that price or any at­tempt to get a mar­ket val­ue for the prop­er­ty.

The HDC, in a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest doc­u­ment, con­firmed that it did not com­pile a val­u­a­tion re­port to as­cer­tain mar­ket val­ue and make an in­formed de­ci­sion on whether to pur­chase the prop­er­ty or not.

Apart from 429 Bal­isi­er Av­enue, the HDC con­firmed that it per­mit­ted Rivulet In­vest­ment Group Lim­it­ed, owned by the Cum­mings fam­i­ly, and Fos­ter Cum­mings to ac­quire two oth­er prop­er­ties: a $4.5 mil­lion Vic­to­ria Keyes Apart­ment (Cab­i­net val­u­a­tion) for Rivulet In­vest­ments Lim­it­ed and land val­ued at $750,000 for Num­ber 73, Bal­isi­er Av­enue, Cou­va South Hous­ing Project for Fos­ter Cum­mings in Jan­u­ary 2015.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed 429 Bal­isi­er Dri­ve, we ob­served a mod­ern com­mer­cial build­ing with large glass win­dow panes. In­side, the prop­er­ty was an of­fice space with mul­ti­ple ceil­ing lights and ceil­ing tiles in­stalled. It takes up the en­tire­ty of that cor­ner of Bal­isi­er Street and the South­ern Main Road.

Lo­cat­ed right next door is a large, lux­u­ri­ous house with a lav­ish dri­ve­way and front gate, as well as an elab­o­rate­ly con­struct­ed porch over­look­ing the area.

The ini­tials F C are dis­played across the top of the front gate and even on the garbage bag hold­er. On the same stretch as the build­ing with the F C ini­tials, there is a peach-coloured com­mer­cial build­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk re­search, there are two busi­ness­es reg­is­tered to that Aneisa Street prop­er­ty: Mod­este Au­to Rentals and Isadore Ex­clu­sive. Both busi­ness­es are reg­is­tered to Juli­et Mod­este, the maid­en name of Juli­et Cum­mings.

On the oth­er side of Bal­isi­er Av­enue, over on Bal­isi­er Street West, is an­oth­er prop­er­ty Cum­mings bought from the HDC in Jan­u­ary 2015, be­fore the PNM came to pow­er. It’s a sim­ple, one-storey, lime-green build­ing lo­cat­ed next to a food busi­ness that needs a new coat of paint.

In com­pli­ance with the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Fos­ter Cum­mings has de­clared his as­sets since en­ter­ing pub­lic of­fice. His hold­ings grew over time—he de­clared nine prop­er­ties in 2018/2019 and two more in 2020, a to­tal of 12 by 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 build­ings in South­ern Main Road, Cou­va; Aneisa Street, Point Lisas; Rawl­ins Av­enue, Gas­par­il­lo; and Bal­isi­er Av­enue, Lisas Gar­dens, Cou­va.

Ap­provals and Val­u­a­tions

The sub­lease deed for 429 Bal­isi­er Dri­ve stat­ed it shall on­ly be used “for the pur­pose of a sin­gle pri­vate dwelling house on­ly for the lessor’s oc­cu­pa­tion and her im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly, who must oc­cu­py the premis­es dur­ing the term here­by grant­ed save where con­sent in writ­ing to as­sign is grant­ed.”

Salazar was grant­ed per­mis­sion to erect a sin­gle pri­vate dwelling house by Town and Coun­try in Ju­ly 2017.

How­ev­er, in Sep­tem­ber 2021, Salazar wrote to HDC to no­ti­fy it that she could not com­plete the con­struc­tion of the house as stat­ed in the lease.

“By this time, the pan­dem­ic had set in, and my liveli­hood was se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ed. The monies that I want­ed to utilise in the con­struc­tion of the home now went to­wards rent and oth­er liv­ing ex­pens­es. It was at this time that I had a dis­cus­sion with my close rel­a­tive, Juli­et Mod­este. Ms Mod­este is like a moth­er to me,” Salazar wrote.

“She of­fered to as­sist with the fi­nan­cial as­pect of com­plet­ing the con­struc­tion of the home. I felt it would on­ly be fair if she were to have le­gal ti­tle to the prop­er­ty, as she would not on­ly bear the costs to com­plete con­struc­tion, but in ad­di­tion, I would be able to live in the house for as long as I want­ed.”

Juli­et Cum­mings, us­ing her maid­en name Mod­este, pur­chased the prop­er­ty for $100,000, al­though Charles Lawrence’s val­u­a­tion placed its worth at $670,000. This was con­tained in a wit­ness state­ment filed by for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al in a civ­il mat­ter in­volv­ing her and Fos­ter Cum­mings.

A 2020 val­u­a­tion re­port by Lawrence stat­ed that the un­fin­ished struc­ture had three, not two, lev­els.

“As per our in­spec­tion, we saw three cast con­crete slabs; hence, we re­ferred to the struc­ture as a three-storey build­ing. How­ev­er, the client has sup­plied an ap­proved build­ing plan … which shows that the sub­ject struc­ture is ap­proved as a two-storey build­ing struc­ture with a rooftop cast and left open-sided,” Lawrence wrote.

Ac­cord­ing to the prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion for Juli­et Cum­mings in 2020, “Hav­ing made com­par­isons and analy­ses with oth­er sim­i­lar parcels of de­vel­oped lands and hav­ing made ad­just­ments for lo­ca­tion, lo­cal­i­ty, size, and de­vel­op­ment ap­provals of these de­vel­oped lands, we are of the opin­ion that this cur­rent open mar­ket val­ue of sub­ject lands is in the or­der of SIX HUN­DRED AND SEV­EN­TY THOU­SAND DOL­LARS.”

Le­gal Mat­ters Against Jayan­ti Dropped

In 2019, a leaked Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Spe­cial Branch re­port, con­firmed by the TTPS to be le­git­i­mate, al­leged that Fos­ter Cum­mings claimed three parcels of land be­long­ing to the HDC as his own.

The re­port, con­firmed by the TTPS to be le­git­i­mate, al­leged that he con­duct­ed un­scrupu­lous busi­ness us­ing two com­pa­nies: Kyl­don and Pi­cal, al­leged­ly us­ing his in­flu­ence to sub­con­tract ser­vices through the HDC.

Cum­mings sued Lutch­me­di­al for defama­tion af­ter she raised al­le­ga­tions re­lat­ed to the leaked Spe­cial Branch re­port, ac­cus­ing her of paint­ing him in a neg­a­tive light. He al­so sued the State in re­la­tion to this mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk al­so con­firmed that Fos­ter Cum­mings dropped his two defama­tion law­suits against the for­mer UNC sen­a­tor.

As part of with­draw­ing the case, the for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter agreed to cov­er all Lutch­me­di­al’s le­gal costs. Lutch­me­di­al’s le­gal team was led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC.

Ap­proached for com­ment, she said, “Di­rect any ques­tions to the claimant, as he with­drew.”

It is un­clear if the mat­ter against the State was dropped as well.

Asked about the al­le­ga­tions in May 2022, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he saw noth­ing to con­firm the claims.

“I don’t know if any law is bro­ken there … Oth­er al­le­ga­tions have been made, which have been de­nied. I’ve seen no con­fir­ma­tion of them, but they’re in the right place. They are in the po­lice’s hands. And if the po­lice can­not con­firm any of that to me, as they do from time to time, what am I sup­posed to act on?” he said.

Cum­mings was reap­point­ed as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Ser­vice and Youth De­vel­op­ment by Stu­art Young dur­ing his stint as prime min­is­ter in March.

He was then re-elect­ed as PNM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary in its in­ter­nal elec­tions in June.

Cum­mings’ Re­sponse

Cum­mings was asked if he or his wife ac­quired 492 Bal­isi­er Dri­ve, and whether he was aware that the prop­er­ty was val­ued at $670,000.

We al­so asked him whether he sees any rea­son why it may be con­sid­ered strange that a HDC prop­er­ty was sold to his wife by her rel­a­tive for well be­low its val­ue, con­sid­er­ing the HDC had first re­fusal on the prop­er­ty.

On Sep­tem­ber 12, at a press con­fer­ence held by the Op­po­si­tion, Cum­mings, re­fer­ring to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, said, “Any par­cel of land owned by my­self or my fam­i­ly, ei­ther in Trinidad or To­ba­go, has been legal­ly ac­quired and le­gal pro­ce­dures prop­er­ly fol­lowed, as with any oth­er cit­i­zen ac­quir­ing prop­er­ty in this coun­try. I have nev­er been in­volved in squat­ting on any lands what­so­ev­er, whether pub­lic or pri­vate.

On Sep­tem­ber 11, Cum­mings told this re­porter, “You have an ob­jec­tive. You are try­ing to paint me as a cor­rupt politi­cian. What are the facts? Why are you not re­port­ing on oth­er busi­ness­peo­ple in this coun­try? Do you have a prob­lem with busi­ness­men of a cer­tain ilk? Joshua, I will not be help­ing you de­fame me and my fam­i­ly. You print what you want, and at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, I will re­spond.”

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk reached out to Juli­et Cum­mings via her Face­book ac­count, which is list­ed as Juli­et Mod­este. She saw the mes­sage but sub­se­quent­ly blocked the re­porter on Mes­sen­ger.