JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

A prison of­fi­cer de­tained un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency had been re­ceiv­ing CEPEP con­tracts from a com­pa­ny formed in his name. A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion can con­firm that for­mer Ras­ta City gang leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke and his fam­i­ly re­ceived at least $1 mil­lion from two com­pa­nies that were award­ed CEPEP con­tracts.

It comes af­ter 10,000-plus Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers were placed on the bread­line at the end of June when the con­tracts of 340 con­trac­tors were ter­mi­nat­ed. The dis­missals were a re­sult of an au­dit or­dered in­to CEPEP by line Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who is in charge of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

Twen­ty-three years ago, via a Cab­i­net note, the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) was es­tab­lished with a man­date to “em­pow­er com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect and im­prove the con­di­tion of the phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment by the ex­pan­sion of op­por­tu­ni­ties for the ben­e­fit of se­mi-skilled and un­skilled cit­i­zens with­in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.”

Be­tween 2009 and 2023, more than $6.5 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to CEPEP, pro­vid­ing thou­sands of low-in­come house­holds with an al­ter­na­tive source of in­come.

It al­so al­lowed con­tract­ed com­pa­nies—many with lim­it­ed trans­paren­cy re­quire­ments—to earn be­tween $20,000 and $50,000 a month in man­age­ment fees.

How­ev­er, due to a lack of po­lit­i­cal will and over­sight, con­tracts award­ed by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments re­sult­ed in some gang lead­ers reap­ing the ben­e­fits, as well as fes­ter­ing al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism and favouritism among par­ty as­so­ciates.

“This Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to end­ing the state fund­ing of crim­i­nal gangs by elim­i­nat­ing the CEPEP and URP and re­plac­ing them with pro­vid­ing full-time, bet­ter-paid jobs,” Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said dur­ing his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion last week, con­firm­ing the pro­gramme’s clo­sure.

To this end, the Gov­ern­ment has al­lo­cat­ed $7 mil­lion to wind up CEPEP.

Ahead of its clo­sure, Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk ex­am­ined some of the con­tracts award­ed be­tween 2021 and 2025.

Be­tween 2021 and 2025, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment con­tract­ed the late for­mer Ras­ta City gang leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke and his fam­i­ly as part of the CEPEP pro­gramme, a Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion can con­firm.

Burke and his fam­i­ly re­ceived at least $1 mil­lion from two com­pa­nies.

Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments re­leased fol­low­ing a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest, even af­ter Burke died from COVID-19 in Sep­tem­ber 2020, pay­ments to his com­pa­nies con­tin­ued.

The doc­u­ments, how­ev­er, did not in­clude con­tracts award­ed be­tween 2018 and 2021, as the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties claimed that lim­it­ed staffing pre­vent­ed it from pro­vid­ing that in­for­ma­tion.

Burke and Com­pa­ny, whose list­ed di­rec­tor was Burke, re­ceived at least $857,000 in con­trac­tor fees be­tween 2021 and 2023.

In 2024, a new CEPEP con­tract was award­ed to Ekrub and Com­pa­ny, which lists Burke’s wife, Fe­li­cia Samuel, and his son, Ri­val­do, as di­rec­tors.

Ekrub re­ceived more than $467,000 in con­trac­tor pay­ments be­tween 2024 and ear­ly 2025.

Three years be­fore his death, Burke at­tend­ed the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at the Pres­i­dent’s House for his friend, the late for­mer min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

When asked about Burke’s ap­pear­ance, Mc­Don­ald said, “They are from East Port-of-Spain, from the Sea Lots area. They rep­re­sent the best of what East Port-of-Spain has to of­fer.”

Three days lat­er, Mc­Don­ald, one of the par­ty’s deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers at the time, was fired by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for bring­ing Burke to the cer­e­mo­ny af­ter pub­lic pres­sure.

Asked at a press con­fer­ence in Ju­ly 2017 whether Mc­Don­ald’s re­moval was be­cause of the gang leader’s pres­ence, he said, “Yes, it did.”

Burke was ar­rest­ed un­der the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship’s 2011 State of Emer­gency. He was ini­tial­ly charged with be­ing a gang leader but was even­tu­al­ly re­leased. He then sued the State for wrong­ful ar­rest.

In 2019, he was ar­rest­ed again, af­ter po­lice found $100,000 in cash at his Sea Lots home.

In 2020, he was one of 60 peo­ple ar­rest­ed for breach­ing COVID-19 lock­down pro­to­cols.

De­spite his rep­u­ta­tion as a gang leader, Burke was nev­er tried for lead­ing Ras­ta City.

In­car­cer­at­ed prison of­fi­cer re­ceived con­tract

Gua­da and As­so­ciates, a com­pa­ny owned by in­car­cer­at­ed act­ing Pris­ons As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Garth Gua­da, re­ceived $1.3 mil­lion.

Gua­da was de­tained dur­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing State of Emer­gency af­ter be­ing ac­cused by the State of be­ing an as­so­ciate of in­car­cer­at­ed gang leader Ra­jaee Ali.

He has de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tions and said he will sue the State for wrong­ful ar­rest.

Ac­cord­ing to a de­ten­tion or­der signed on Au­gust 18, Gua­da is al­leged­ly an as­so­ciate of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang and oth­er gangs.

“He has been con­firmed to be pro­vid­ing sup­port to oth­er gang lead­ers and mem­bers who are in­car­cer­at­ed in fur­ther­ance of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in, in­volve­ment in or com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the im­mi­nent­ly planned killing of pub­lic of­fi­cials in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles,” the de­ten­tion or­der stat­ed.

Back­ground

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

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.

In Ju­ly 2023, af­ter re­ports of gang wars be­ing fought over con­tracts, CEPEP of­fi­cials 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.

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 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.

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