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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.