$10M in CEPEP contracts for current and former PNM councillors

$10M in CEPEP contracts for current and former PNM councillors

Two sep­a­rate com­pa­nies, linked to San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor Nigel Cout­ti­er and for­mer coun­cil­lor Jen­nifer Mar­ryshow, were award­ed near­ly $9.7 mil­lion in Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­tracts un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk has re­vealed.

This rev­e­la­tion fol­lows Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s sharp crit­i­cism of the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion, where he ac­cused the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion of us­ing CEPEP funds to bankroll “PNM boys and girls.”

Padarath, the new line min­is­ter for CEPEP, claimed some con­trac­tors were re­ceiv­ing as much as $40,000 to $50,000 in state funds month­ly.

“Man­age­ment told me min­is­ters would call up in terms of who would be­come a CEPEP con­trac­tor. There was no trans­paren­cy in the process. In­stead, it was used as a par­ty sys­tem avail­able for re­ward­ing PNM boys and girls. Some CEPEP con­trac­tors re­ceived, in many in­stances, in ex­cess of two to three gangs,” Padarath said in late June, af­ter an­nounc­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of more than 300 CEPEP con­tracts.

“And out of 350 con­tracts that were award­ed (be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion), over 275 of them func­tioned and op­er­at­ed out of PNM-held con­stituen­cies–close to 75 per cent of CEPEP con­tracts award­ed over the past ten years op­er­at­ed out of PNM-held con­stituen­cies.”

At that time, Padarath al­so an­nounced that a full au­dit was be­ing con­duct­ed in­to the state com­pa­ny.

As con­firmed by the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment’s Com­pa­ny Reg­istry, Ku­dos Kleen­ing Main­te­nance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed share­hold­ers are Mon Re­pos/Navet coun­cil­lor Nigel Cout­ti­er and a close fe­male rel­a­tive. The name that is list­ed, how­ev­er, is spelt ‘Couiti­er’. But the ad­dress for ‘Nigel Couiti­er’ is list­ed as the same ad­dress as the fe­male rel­a­tive whose last name in­cludes Cout­ti­er (the cor­rect spelling).

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, two dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies—Nigel Cout­ti­er Pro­mo­tions and Nigel Cout­ti­er Broad­cast­ing Net­work Lim­it­ed—have the same Mara­bel­la ad­dress that is list­ed for Ku­dos Kleen­ing.

For both Nigel Cout­ti­er Pro­mo­tions and Nigel Cout­ti­er Broad­cast­ing Net­work Lim­it­ed, Cout­ti­er is iden­ti­fied as a di­rec­tor and or share­hold­er.

Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk, be­tween Feb­ru­ary 2022 and March 2023, Cout­ti­er’s com­pa­ny re­ceived two CEPEP con­tracts worth ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.7 mil­lion.

The first was a one-year con­tract be­tween Feb­ru­ary 2022 and 2023. The sec­ond, a six-year con­tract, was signed in March 2023 and was valid un­til Feb­ru­ary 2029.

Ku­dos Kleen­ing al­so pro­vid­ed ser­vices to an­oth­er state com­pa­ny, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.

As con­firmed in a Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban Plan­ning doc­u­ment sub­mit­ted in re­sponse to a re­port from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee on the man­age­ment and op­er­a­tions of the HDC, Ku­dos Kleen­ing was paid $118,542.20 be­tween Oc­to­ber 2022 and Au­gust 2023.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk was un­able to de­ter­mine if the com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed oth­er ser­vices to HDC.

Ku­dos Kleen­ing Main­te­nance Lim­it­ed, the com­pa­ny owned by coun­cil­lor Cout­ti­er, was in­cor­po­rat­ed in Feb­ru­ary 2019.

As of Jan­u­ary 2025, Cout­ti­er was not list­ed as a com­pa­ny di­rec­tor, but was list­ed as one of two share­hold­ers. The oth­er is a close fe­male rel­a­tive liv­ing at the same ad­dress.

Ac­cord­ing to his LinkedIn pro­file, Cout­ti­er has worked as an en­gi­neer with Tuck­er En­er­gy Ser­vices since 2013.

He suc­cess­ful­ly en­tered pol­i­tics in 2019 as a San Fer­nan­do coun­cil­lor, hav­ing won the Mon Re­pos/Navet elec­toral dis­trict in that year’s De­cem­ber Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. Cout­ti­er won the elec­toral dis­trict again in the Au­gust 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

The coun­cil­lor’s name was pub­lished by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion as hav­ing ini­tial­ly failed to file de­c­la­ra­tions of In­come, As­sets, and Li­a­bil­i­ties and State­ments of Reg­is­tra­ble In­ter­ests in 2021. In sub­se­quent lists for 2021, 2022 and 2023, how­ev­er, he seemed to have filed doc­u­men­ta­tion, as his name was not pub­lished among those who did not.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk wrote to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion seek­ing to find out, first­ly, whether Cout­ti­er filed his In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life doc­u­ments and sec­ond­ly, whether he filed that he was an own­er of Ku­dos Kleen­ing Main­te­nance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Reg­is­trar Isha George ac­knowl­edged the re­quest on Fri­day morn­ing, stat­ing the ques­tions would be sub­mit­ted to the com­mis­sion for re­view.

The com­mis­sion, how­ev­er, lat­er de­clined to re­lease the in­for­ma­tion, cit­ing Sec­tion 20(1) of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, chap­ter 22:01.

“De­c­la­ra­tions filed with the com­mis­sion and the records of the com­mis­sion in re­spect of those de­c­la­ra­tions are se­cret and con­fi­den­tial and shall not be made pub­lic, ex­cept where a par­tic­u­lar de­c­la­ra­tion or record is re­quired to be pro­duced for the pur­pose of or in con­nec­tion with any court pro­ceed­ings against, or en­quiry in re­spect of a de­clar­ant un­der the IPLA, the Per­jury Act, the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act, the Ex­change Con­trol Act or the Com­mis­sions of En­quiry Act,” the sec­tion states.

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion man­dates that in­di­vid­u­als in pub­lic life must an­nu­al­ly de­clare their in­come, as­sets and li­a­bil­i­ties.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk called, mes­saged and emailed Cout­ti­er sev­er­al times seek­ing com­ment. He did not re­spond.

At the UNC’s Mon­day Night Re­port on Ju­ly 7 in Pe­nal, Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein ad­dressed Ku­dos Kleen­ing as it re­lat­ed to CEPEP con­tracts.

“There is one com­pa­ny called Ku­dos Kleen­ing Main­te­nance Com­pa­ny Ltd. They were giv­en the con­tract on March 1, 2023, and the con­tract ends on March 1, 2029. They get a six-year con­tract. A per­son who has ben­e­fit­ed in this com­pa­ny is one Nigel Wayne Cout­ti­er,” he al­leged.

“I won­der if this is the same PNM coun­cil­lor in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion. Is this a PNM coun­cil­lor who was giv­en a CEPEP con­tract through his com­pa­ny?” he asked.

A sec­ond com­pa­ny, Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance Lim­it­ed, was award­ed two con­tracts val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $6.7 mil­lion be­tween March 2020 and March 2023. The first con­tract was award­ed for three years, be­tween March 2020 and 2023. It was then re­newed for six years un­til March 2029.

The le­gal agree­ments were signed de­spite the com­pa­ny be­ing struck off from the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry, hav­ing not filed an­nu­al re­turns for many years.

When a com­pa­ny is struck off the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry, it can no longer legal­ly en­gage in busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties, as it ceas­es to be a le­gal en­ti­ty. In the­o­ry, this should al­so make it sig­nif­i­cant­ly more dif­fi­cult for a com­pa­ny to re­ceive state con­tracts. While a com­pa­ny that has been struck off the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry can­not legal­ly op­er­ate or en­ter in­to con­tracts, gaps in due dili­gence may al­low it to still re­ceive state con­tracts un­less the is­sue is flagged and ad­dressed.

As of Jan­u­ary 2018, Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance list­ed its di­rec­tors as the for­mer San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor for Mara­bel­la West, Jen­nifer Mar­ryshow, and her daugh­ter, Jameela Mar­ryshow-St Hill.

Jen­nifer Mar­ryshow was the elec­toral dis­trict’s coun­cil­lor for a decade, while Jameela was the PNM’s un­suc­cess­ful can­di­date for the dis­trict in the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Jen­nifer was al­so a for­mer di­rec­tor at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty. Jameela’s pro­fes­sion was list­ed as a cos­me­tol­o­gist in com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments.

Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance al­so re­ceived CEPEP con­tracts un­der the PNM’s Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In May 2011, as re­port­ed by the Trinidad Guardian, 60 CEPEP work­ers from Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance were served with ter­mi­na­tion let­ters af­ter the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment came to pow­er.

In an in­ter­view then, Jen­nifer Mar­ryshow claimed she was not in­ter­est­ed in an­oth­er CEPEP con­tract, but rather in her work­ers be­ing placed on the bread­line.

On Mon­day, at the UNC’s po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Pe­nal, the Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter re­ferred to Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance.

“It have a next com­pa­ny called Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance Lim­it­ed. You all know Mar­ryshow, the San Fer­nan­do West posse? All yuh know who is that? Is that a PNM ac­tivist? Is Jameela Mar­ryshow a for­mer PNM can­di­date? Well, I want to tell you, she get a con­tract too, un­der her com­pa­ny. Her com­pa­ny got a con­tract in March 2023 and will ex­pire on March 31, 2029.

“This is what was hap­pen­ing at the CEPEP com­pa­ny. Heads will roll. We are here to pro­tect the pub­lic’s in­ter­est, and we are pro­tect­ing the pub­lic’s in­ter­est. That is what we will do,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk spoke with Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance Di­rec­tor Jameela Mar­ryshow-St Hill on Fri­day.

She asked how we got her num­ber, and then said she had noth­ing to say on the mat­ter, as that’s just how pol­i­tics goes.

For­mer CEPEP chair­man Joel Ed­wards, who over­saw the state com­pa­ny be­tween 2023 and ear­ly 2025, be­lieves there was no pos­si­ble con­flict of in­ter­est in a cur­rent or for­mer city cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor be­ing award­ed a CEPEP con­tract.

He said he was sure that any con­tracts award­ed would have un­der­gone prop­er pro­cure­ment and bid­ding process­es.

“I nev­er paid at­ten­tion to the names of the con­trac­tors or the own­ers of the com­pa­nies. In any event, these con­tracts would have been award­ed be­fore my time at CEPEP. The record will show that un­der my tenure, the num­ber of con­trac­tors ac­tu­al­ly de­creased. No new con­trac­tors were the man­date of the then min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” he told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day.

Last Sun­day, Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­tiga­tive Desk re­vealed that CEPEP au­dits have not been sub­mit­ted to Par­lia­ment, as man­dat­ed, since 2014.

How­ev­er, Ed­wards said the com­pa­ny’s au­dits for fis­cal 2015 to 2017 were sub­mit­ted to the Fi­nance Min­istry “some time ago.”

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so re­vealed that in­ter­nal com­pa­ny au­dits had not been com­plet­ed since fis­cal 2017, leav­ing around $2.5 bil­lion in gov­ern­ment al­lo­ca­tions ful­ly un­ac­count­ed for.

“2018 is cur­rent­ly be­ing fi­nalised by the au­di­tors, 2019 is in the process of be­ing au­dit­ed, and the (UNC) MoF just re­cent­ly gave ap­proval for PKF to con­tin­ue with 2020 to 2024,” Ed­wards added.

Last week, the Op­po­si­tion PNM filed a law­suit and an in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion on be­half of East­man En­ter­prise Lim­it­ed, a Laven­tille-based com­pa­ny whose CEPEP con­tract was ter­mi­nat­ed. The law­suit aims to pre­vent CEPEP from re­plac­ing the more than 300 con­trac­tors who were fired, pend­ing the out­come of the case.

East­man En­ter­prise ini­tial­ly signed a one-year con­tract in Sep­tem­ber 2018. The con­tract was re­newed for a fur­ther two years and then an­oth­er year be­fore the par­ties en­tered in­to a new con­tract in Oc­to­ber 2022.

The fol­low­ing year, the com­pa­ny’s con­tract was ex­tend­ed to Sep­tem­ber 2026.

On April 23, days be­fore the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the con­tract was mod­i­fied and ex­tend­ed to Sep­tem­ber 2029.

East­man re­ceived a man­age­ment fee rang­ing from $21,999 to $23,947 per month, while its 29 em­ploy­ees were paid di­rect­ly by the State com­pa­ny.

At a PNM me­dia con­fer­ence last week, Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les chas­tised the UNC for the com­ments some of its MPs had made about the 10,500 CEPEP work­ers who were af­fect­ed by the ter­mi­na­tion of con­trac­tors.

“These are the kind of cal­lous and ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ments that we are hear­ing from lead­ers in the Gov­ern­ment, de­scrib­ing hard-work­ing cit­i­zens as ‘ghost work­ers’ and what the PNM is do­ing is de­fend­ing ‘ghost work­ers’ and what have you. I be­lieve that is very un­for­tu­nate,” Gon­za­les said.

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