Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter 

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings says the par­ty is pre­pared to de­fend it­self against an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fund­ing and con­struc­tion of its mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain, but in­sists Gov­ern­ment’s re­al mo­tive is to per­se­cute and em­bar­rass the par­ty.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House last night, Cum­mings sought to re­as­sure par­ty mem­bers that all would be well fol­low­ing the re­cent court-or­dered in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I want to give every mem­ber of this move­ment the firm as­sur­ance that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is stand­ing strong. Its of­fi­cers are at their posts. Its af­fairs are be­ing man­aged. Its at­tor­neys are ready,” he said.

“No­body in­side Bal­isi­er House is pack­ing up any bag, search­ing for no back­door, or ne­go­ti­at­ing any sur­ren­der of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment. We are ready and de­ter­mined to de­fend our peo­ple, our par­ty, and to de­fend our par­ty head­quar­ters.”

His com­ments come just over a week af­ter he was served with a court or­der com­pelling the PNM to pro­vide fi­nan­cial and oth­er records ex­plain­ing the fund­ing of the mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar con­struc­tion of Bal­isi­er House.

Ear­li­er this month, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed grant­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der (PU­WO) re­quir­ing the PNM to ac­count for the fund­ing of its head­quar­ters.

The ap­pli­ca­tion was made un­der Sec­tion 58(1) of the Civ­il As­set Re­cov­ery and Man­age­ment and Un­ex­plained Wealth Act, 2019, af­ter Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro au­tho­rised act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ram­dath Phillip to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Po­lice were giv­en sev­en days to serve the or­der on the par­ty.

Speak­ing pub­licly for the first time about be­ing served, Cum­mings said he made no ef­fort to evade in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

“I re­turned to my beau­ti­ful coun­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go through Pi­ar­co re­cent­ly. An ac­cept­ed doc­u­ment was served up­on me, and I am stand­ing be­fore you tonight in the open, speak­ing in my own name and the of­fice that you have en­trust­ed to me,” Cum­mings said.

He said he had in­formed in­ves­ti­ga­tors that he would be re­turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go and was avail­able to re­ceive the doc­u­ments.

“I com­mu­ni­cat­ed with them on the same day say­ing, ‘I’m com­ing back to Trinidad and To­ba­go, you feel free to vis­it me at Bal­isi­er House and bring what­ev­er you have for the PNM. I will col­lect it on be­half of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.’”

He added, “Notwith­stand­ing that, like a thief in the night, to cause bac­cha­nal and ku­choor, they showed up to try and em­bar­rass the PNM.”

Main­tain­ing the par­ty would not be in­tim­i­dat­ed, he told sup­port­ers the par­ty’s le­gal team was pre­pared for the chal­lenge.

“Our at­tor­neys are ready. When those who per­se­cute you are wait­ing anx­ious­ly to see fear up­on your face, you must dis­ap­point them with your com­po­sure.”

He al­so sought to calm sup­port­ers con­cerned about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“To the PNM mem­bers who have been wor­ried, I say stand easy. To the sup­port­ers who are an­gered, I say pre­serve your strength.”

Cum­mings fur­ther ar­gued that the gov­ern­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had mis­judged the Op­po­si­tion’s re­sponse.

“The UNC has made a first re­al mis­take, a very se­ri­ous mis­take. They are mis­tak­ing our calm­ness for weak­ness.”

While sharply crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment over what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, Cum­mings stopped short of al­leg­ing di­rect po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I make no reck­less al­le­ga­tion about any min­is­ter di­rect­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­cause I don’t want to prac­tice and con­done what I am con­demn­ing,” he said.

“But if that is hap­pen­ing, it is wrong. And it should stop.”