Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

More than $6.5 bil­lion in pub­lic funds was pumped in­to the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) over 15 years–be­tween 2009 and 2023–by the Gov­ern­ment.

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion has found that 63 per cent—ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.1 bil­lion—of CEPEP’s fi­nances has not been ful­ly ac­count­ed for to the pub­lic. The last au­dit sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment dates back more than a decade, cov­er­ing fis­cal 2014.

As a state com­pa­ny, CEPEP is re­quired to pro­vide full fi­nan­cial ac­count­abil­i­ty by sub­mit­ting au­dit­ed state­ments an­nu­al­ly to Par­lia­ment.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port, no in­ter­nal au­dits were con­duct­ed at the com­pa­ny be­tween 2018 and 2023—a pe­ri­od dur­ing which CEPEP re­ceived $2.5 bil­lion in pub­lic funds.

The 2024 re­port al­so flagged con­cerns over a re­cent $499.2 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion. “Doc­u­ments to sup­port three pay­ments to­talling $55.6 mil­lion to the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed were not pro­vid­ed for au­dit,” it stat­ed.

In re­sponse, CEPEP—un­der­go­ing sev­er­al board changes in re­cent years—has at­trib­uted the miss­ing da­ta to a “serv­er crash” that al­leged­ly wiped crit­i­cal records. No­tably, the crash is said to have oc­curred af­ter the close of the 2014 fi­nan­cial year, which end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30.

An up­date was pro­vid­ed at a Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) hear­ing in April 2023.

The pub­lic heard that “the in­abil­i­ty to re­tain crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion dis­rupt­ed CEPEP’s abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly ex­e­cute its op­er­a­tions and com­plete its ac­counts and fi­nan­cial state­ments in a time­ly man­ner. The com­mit­tee queried whether hard copies were made avail­able be­fore the serv­er crash …

“CEPEP re­vealed that dur­ing the year 2014, the com­pa­ny’s sys­tem was ex­am­ined, and no in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing hard copies, was stored. It was found that hun­dreds of doc­u­ments were miss­ing. A con­tain­er was al­so found on the out­side of the com­pa­ny’s build­ing with de­stroyed doc­u­ments in­side.”

Be­tween 2011 and 2015, un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, CEPEP was al­lo­cat­ed $2.58 bil­lion—an av­er­age of $516 mil­lion per year.

From 2016 to 2023, un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment led by Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the com­pa­ny re­ceived $3.5 bil­lion—av­er­ag­ing $441.4 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

The peak year for CEPEP al­lo­ca­tions was 2015, when the com­pa­ny re­ceived $606.2 mil­lion.

In the 2024 Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port, con­cerns were raised about the most re­cent al­lo­ca­tion—$499.2 mil­lion. “Doc­u­ments to sup­port three pay­ments to­talling $55.6 mil­lion to the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed were not pro­vid­ed for au­dit,” the re­port stat­ed.

Con­cerns about the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial trans­paren­cy do not end there.

In its 2023/2024 re­port to Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion stat­ed that CEPEP failed to sub­mit the re­quired quar­ter­ly con­tract re­ports for the fi­nal two quar­ters of 2023.

As part of its rec­om­men­da­tions, the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee called for a foren­sic au­dit and in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment.

How­ev­er, Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass in­formed Par­lia­men­tary Clerk Bri­an Cae­sar that the of­fice was un­able to ful­fil the re­quest.

“Please note that this type of au­dit is not in­clud­ed in the con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al,” Ram­dass wrote.

Be­fore that, in March 2020, the re­port of an In­quiry to As­sess the Per­for­mance of CEPEP and its op­er­a­tions found that there was $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; In­ves­ti­ga­tions led to the dis­cov­ery of a bank ac­count cre­at­ed by a for­mer board, which was used to with­draw the monies; and CEPEP was await­ing vi­tal in­for­ma­tion from the rel­e­vant bank re­gard­ing dis­burse­ment of the funds,” the re­port stat­ed.

The re­port al­so not­ed that a $1 mil­lion gra­tu­ity pay­ment was made to a for­mer CEO, ac­com­pa­nied by a non-dis­clo­sure clause.

An­oth­er re­port by a con­sul­tant, the Arthur Lock Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness in 2016, ad­vised that the com­pa­ny does not un­der­stand the in­her­ent weak­ness of its busi­ness mod­el.

The re­port con­clud­ed, “(It) ... fa­cil­i­tates cor­rup­tion and de­pen­den­cy. The main weak­ness of the mod­el was not­ed as its rev­o­lu­tion around the cal­cu­la­tion and quan­tum of man­age­ment fees.

“Pays work­ers di­rect­ly in­to bank ac­counts; Pays statu­to­ry pay­ments to con­trac­tors for them to re­mit to GORTT; and Pays a ‘Man­age­ment Fee’ which is ex­ces­sive,” it stat­ed.

CEPEP’s last sub­mit­ted fi­nan­cial au­dit state­ment was done by Hardy’s Char­tered Ac­coun­tants.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2014 au­dit, the com­pa­ny had $36.3 mil­lion in hand and the banks in 2014. In 2013, it was $108.9 mil­lion.

In 2014, con­trac­tors were paid $455.9 mil­lion, while in 2013, they were paid $520 mil­lion.

In fis­cal 2014, CEPEP’s largest ex­pen­di­ture was en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and en­hance­ment, to­talling $477.1 mil­lion. Ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­pens­es fol­lowed at $20.4 mil­lion, with per­son­nel costs close be­hind at $18.9 mil­lion.

Hardy’s re­signed be­fore com­plet­ing the com­pa­ny’s 2015 au­dit.

CEPEP fund­ing

Ap­prox­i­mate An­nu­al Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture

2023 - $477 mil­lion

2022 - $426.6 mil­lion

2021 - $443.9 mil­lion

2020 - $400.4 mil­lion

2019 - $353.5 mil­lion

2018 - $448 mil­lion

2017 - $450 mil­lion

2016 - $531.6 mil­lion

2015 - $606.2 mil­lion

2014 - $532.6 mil­lion

2013 - $584.0 mil­lion

2012 - $494.4 mil­lion

2011 - $366.1 mil­lion

2010 - $94 mil­lion

2009 - $300 mil­lion

Guardian Me­dia reached out to CEPEP’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment for com­ment on Fri­day. Al­though the de­part­ment ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the ques­tions, no re­sponse had been pro­vid­ed up to late yes­ter­day.

CEPEP easy to fix, but no po­lit­i­cal will to act–Figueira

Crim­i­nol­o­gist and So­cial Re­searcher Dau­rius Figueira de­scribed CEPEP as the cen­tre of a “long-stand­ing po­lit­i­cal game”.

He not­ed that with every change in gov­ern­ment, dis­cus­sions about ghost gangs with­in CEPEP resur­face—but de­spite the re­cur­ring al­le­ga­tions, no in­ves­ti­ga­tion has ever been com­plet­ed or led to a pros­e­cu­tion.

“The ghost is easy to find. What you have to do is sim­ply mon­i­tor the size of the gang. You have peo­ple out there who would pass and eas­i­ly ver­i­fy, if you have two wack­er­man, how many women and men are in the gang …You keep mon­i­tor­ing them.

“The next stage af­ter you mon­i­tor the gangs is to make sure that the le­gal re­quire­ment is on the ground and work­ing. You just pull the ac­counts of the con­trac­tor and see if the pay­roll the con­trac­tor is sub­mit­ting to CEPEP is what is on the ground. If the pay­roll does not match what is on the ground, it is in­flat­ed, and that means the con­trac­tor is in a mafia that in­volves peo­ple with­in the CEPEP com­pa­ny who in­flate the pay­rolls in­side to send it to fi­nance, who is not do­ing an au­dit to then pay,” he said.

Figueira al­so point­ed to the pro­cure­ment of goods and ser­vices as an­oth­er area vul­ner­a­ble to abuse, not­ing that con­trac­tors are fi­nan­cial­ly re­spon­si­ble for equip­ment and ma­te­ri­als.

How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the deep­er is­sue pre­vent­ing mean­ing­ful re­form at CEPEP is the per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, in­clud­ing al­le­ga­tions that some politi­cians may be im­prop­er­ly ben­e­fit­ing from con­trac­tor re­la­tion­ships.

Figueira said that CEPEP’s fi­nan­cial op­er­a­tions are “very easy to au­dit and to nail”, but there’s a lack of po­lit­i­cal will to clean it up.

He al­leged that some politi­cians in­flu­ence con­trac­tor se­lec­tion, cre­at­ing a cy­cle of de­pen­den­cy: “The politi­cians choose the con­trac­tor, and the con­trac­tors be­come be­hold­en to the politi­cians. The more gangs the con­trac­tor gets, the more for them.”

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that pro­cure­ment costs may be in­flat­ed to sus­tain this sys­tem: “The on­ly way the mon­ey is cut up for them boys to get their mon­ey at the top is the boys in CEPEP have to in­flate the cost of pur­chas­es in­side.”

These claims have not been sub­stan­ti­at­ed by of­fi­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

How­ev­er, in 2014, in the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s Re­port to Par­lia­ment, it was re­vealed that an anony­mous com­plaint was made to the com­mis­sion that a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment was al­leged­ly col­lect­ing mon­ey from CEPEP con­trac­tors.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was list­ed as in progress, but there have been no ar­rests to date.

Gangs and con­tracts

In Ju­ly 2023 af­ter there were re­ports of gang wars be­ing fought over con­tracts, CEPEP de­nied claims that con­tracts were be­ing award­ed to gang lead­ers.

Be­fore that, in 2019, for­mer CEPEP chair­man Ash­ford Ford al­so de­nied, be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC), that gang lead­ers were be­ing award­ed con­tracts.

“We are not in­volved, nei­ther the gen­er­al man­ag­er nor our su­per­vi­sors are in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty like that. If a con­trac­tor is award­ed and some­body in his com­pa­ny is in­volved in [il­le­gal] ac­tiv­i­ties we are not re­spon­si­ble for that ei­ther,” Ford said.

How­ev­er, while CEPEP di­rec­tors have de­nied any gang in­volve­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic re­search sup­ports the claims made by a for­mer gang mem­ber in­ter­viewed by Guardian Me­dia.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad and Prof Ann-Marie Bisses­sar in their re­search pa­per ‘Gangs in the Caribbean’ wrote that URP, CEPEP and oth­er projects that gen­er­ate large sums of mon­ey, cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment in which gangs com­pete for the projects.

“Mark Guer­ra, a crim­i­nal de­por­tee from the US, who be­came known as the ‘don of Laven­tille’ and Sean Fran­cis, who lived op­u­lent­ly in Laven­tille, both men were known to be heav­i­ly in­volved in the URP and were both even­tu­al­ly gunned down. Guer­ra was a high­ly paid URP su­per­vi­sor, earn­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $150,000 per month, and who re­put­ed­ly owned a num­ber of prop­er­ties,” they wrote.

“He re­port­ed­ly cam­paigned in mar­gin­al seats for for­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning, and ap­peared in pho­tographs which showed him ac­com­pa­ny­ing the for­mer prime min­is­ter on the 2002 elec­tion cam­paign. To re­it­er­ate the ar­gu­ment, the pat­tern of gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence is struc­tural­ly re­lat­ed to es­tab­lished po­lit­i­cal process in terms of de­liv­er­ing con­stituen­cy votes at elec­tion time in re­turn for ac­cess to gov­ern­ment fund­ing via pro­grams like the URP and CEPEP,” they added.

An­oth­er study by Ger­man crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Jan­i­na Pawelz en­ti­tled “Hob­s­bawm in Trinidad: Un­der­stand­ing Con­tem­po­rary Modal­i­ties in Ur­ban Vi­o­lence”, al­so re­port­ed deep-root­ed gang con­nec­tions.

“Be­sides drug traf­fick­ing, the gangs in Trinidad de­pend on gov­ern­ment con­tracts and so­cial work pro­grammes (CEPEP and URP) as re­sources. This source of in­come is fierce­ly de­fend­ed … This is in line with what a res­i­dent from Ben­tham Gar­dens ob­served: ‘The gangs con­trol the ten days, CEPEP and URP, they con­trol that with­in any gov­ern­ment be­cause all of them fear vi­o­lence.’

“Of­fi­cers from the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion point­ed out the para­dox of hand­ing out con­tracts and so­cial work pro­grammes to gang lead­ers, which en­able them to fi­nance the pur­chase of arms: The gov­ern­ment hands them [gangs] a mil­lion-dol­lar project and they use the mon­ey to buy ex­pen­sive guns that they use against us!” the study by the Pro­fes­sor of the In­sti­tute for Peace Re­search and Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, Ger­many stat­ed.

To date, no charges have been laid in con­nec­tion with CEPEP-re­lat­ed cor­rup­tion since the in­cep­tion of the com­pa­ny in 2008.