Police begin probe into URP corruption allegations and question several people

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­[email protected]

Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act doc­u­ments show the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) tenure paid large sums of mon­ey to a no­to­ri­ous gang­ster, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, as well as a for­mer PNM Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date.

It has run through sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions, with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment act­ing de­ci­sive­ly to shut it down last year.

The pay­ments raise ques­tions about the al­leged mis­use of tax­pay­er funds through­out the pro­gramme’s his­to­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2018, a com­pa­ny owned by for­mer Mus­lim Gang af­fil­i­ate, car deal­er and busi­ness­man Sheron Sukhdeo re­ceived a URP con­tract worth $399,966.

The type of ser­vice of­fered by Sukhdeo’s com­pa­ny, Re­volv­ing Re­al Es­tate & Pro­mo­tions Lim­it­ed, was not list­ed in the doc­u­ments.

Ac­cord­ing to In­dar Paras­ram, URP’s Pro­gramme Man­ag­er un­der the PNM, the con­tract award­ed to Sukhdeo’s com­pa­ny did not come un­der his lead­er­ship.

“Nah. We nev­er had any­thing to do with that. We nev­er give no con­tract for that. What could hap­pen is that with con­tracts end­ing in 2015 with the Gen­er­al Elec­tions, the UNC gave out mil­lions of dol­lars in con­tracts where they nev­er had any­body sign off on it. They just used to as­sign con­tracts. Pay­ments would have flowed over for us to pay,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Paras­ram, the URP un­der the PNM nev­er award­ed a sin­gle con­tract be­tween 2016 and 2025.

“Since I was Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, we nev­er gave out a sin­gle con­tract. We did in-house work, which is where we hired peo­ple and they did pave­ment and drains and so forth,” he said.

But, the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Khadi­jah Ameen, re­vealed to the Sun­day Guardian that since the clo­sure of URP, the po­lice have al­ready ques­tioned peo­ple as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the pro­gramme con­tin­ue.

“We are in the process of wind­ing up URP. We have had cause to send some files to the Fraud Squad. Per­sons have been ques­tioned by the po­lice in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Cer­tain an­nu­al au­dits that are re­quired by law will be done, and where nec­es­sary, fur­ther re­ports will be made to the TTPS.

“The pro­gramme re­al­ly lost its way un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. In­stead of try­ing to blame UNC, they should be apol­o­gis­ing for the abuse of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. By root­ing out cor­rup­tion, this Gov­ern­ment will have more mon­ey to em­ploy re­al per­sons. Peo­ple need work. We are clean­ing up the mess,” she said.

Re­volv­ing Re­al Es­tate & Pro­mo­tions Lim­it­ed, ac­cord­ing to com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments, was di­rect­ed by Sukhdeo and a close fe­male rel­a­tive.

The com­pa­ny last filed an­nu­al re­turns in 2022 and re­mains ac­tive.

Known as World Boss, Sheron was mur­dered in March of 2018 – six months be­fore his com­pa­ny re­ceived pay­ment from the URP.

Sukhdeo had been charged with as­sault­ing his wife in 2016, but the charges were lat­er dropped. A year lat­er, he was charged with re­ceiv­ing two stolen cars and fraud. He had al­so been linked to mur­ders, kid­nap­pings, drug deal­ing, ex­tor­tions and ve­hi­cle thefts, but was nev­er suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed.

Mean­while, ac­cord­ing to the FOIA doc­u­ments, be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2019 and Au­gust 2022, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s Guard and Emer­gency Branch, two se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, and the TTPS North­ern Di­vi­sion re­ceived more than two mil­lion dol­lars in URP pay­ments.

Ac­cord­ing to the URP doc­u­ments, a se­nior of­fi­cer of the TTPS’ Guard and Emer­gency Branch re­ceived pay­ments on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2019, to­talling $318,312.

The se­nior of­fi­cer was named in the doc­u­ment, but Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk could not suc­cess­ful­ly con­tact the re­tired se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent for com­ment, so his name was omit­ted.

The Sep­tem­ber 2019 pay­ments to the se­nior Guard and Emer­gency Branch of­fi­cer were: $40,008, $29,352, $45,008, $40,304, $33,736, $46,768, $44,464 and $38,672.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, a day lat­er, the “a Supt of Guard & Emer­gency Branch” was paid an­oth­er $364,538 in to­tal from 12 pay­ments. How­ev­er, the po­lice of­fi­cer was not named.

The Sep­tem­ber 2019 pay­ments to ‘Supt Guard & Emer­gency Branch were: $30,504, $30,624, $30,312, $21,664, $33,408, $23,104, $21,440, $36,704, $23,224, $48,114, $31,648 and $33,792.

On March 9, 2023, the TTPS North­ern Di­vi­sion re­ceived $333,320.

No rea­son for the pay­ment was pro­vid­ed in the doc­u­ments.

In 2022, the TTPS Guard and Emer­gency Branch col­lect­ed $540,662.

On March 23, 2020, the TTPS col­lect­ed an­oth­er $136,807 for ex­tra du­ty work in Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma and at the URP Head Of­fice.

Three months lat­er, the TTPS re­ceived an­oth­er $333,784 for four sep­a­rate ex­tra-du­ty pay­ments at the URP head of­fice and oth­er URP of­fices.

A re­tired se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said he was not aware whether the pay­ments could have been part of a clan­des­tine arrange­ment, but con­firmed that po­lice of­fi­cers were al­lowed to pro­vide ex­tra du­ty work for any client.

“All I can tell you is that any­body can use the po­lice ser­vice to get of­fi­cers to work ex­tra du­ty. If they are in the area and a threat ex­ists, they will, in fact, go and pay for the po­lice of­fi­cers to work and car­ry out that du­ty.

“I re­mem­ber that hap­pen­ing in Ari­ma and dif­fer­ent places. Even some con­trac­tors use them in ar­eas where they are do­ing work, where they feel peo­ple might ex­tort them, they would hire po­lice, oth­er than the nor­mal po­lice do­ing pa­trols, and they would come off leave and va­ca­tion and work a few hours,” the re­tired of­fi­cer said.

Mean­while, Gary Grif­fith, who was the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for three years from 2018 to 2021, said ex­tra du­ty and over­time were among the ma­jor sources of po­lice cor­rup­tion dur­ing his tenure.

“There were cer­tain sta­tions and cer­tain units that were bla­tant. We start­ed giv­ing a cer­tain cap, and when we put that cap, we were able to re­duce over­time cor­rup­tion by over $100 mil­lion per an­num. I have to ver­i­fy this par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion, but over­time is not some­thing you need from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and that is why cer­tain sta­tions and di­vi­sions were run­ning wild with it, and it was a ma­jor el­e­ment of po­lice cor­rup­tion, and be­cause of that, we put a dent in a ma­jor en­ter­prise that was over $100 mil­lion per an­num,” he said.

The 18 pay­ments made to the TTPS’ Guard and Emer­gency Branch dat­ed Au­gust 24, 2022 are $25,136, $26,896, $30,808, $31,104, $23,328, $28,080, $24,184, $6,872, $15,552, $12,480, $22,264, $48,104, $60,064, $39,376, $31,872, $19,576, $20,800 and $14,488. The pay­ments to­talled $480,984.

Two com­pa­nies, once di­rect­ed by Aaron Sher­az Mo­hammed, re­ceived more than $15.3 mil­lion in URP con­tracts be­tween 2018 and 2025, ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments.

Mo­hammed was the PNM’s 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­date for Cou­va South and its 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion can­di­date for Clax­ton Bay/Point-a-Pierre.

The com­pa­nies in re­ceipt of the con­tracts were AM Sales and Ser­vices, as well as SASA Dis­trib­u­tors.

Mo­hammed was re­moved as a di­rec­tor from the com­pa­nies, ac­cord­ing to com­pa­ny reg­istry doc­u­ments, but rel­a­tives with the same list­ed ad­dress re­mained as di­rec­tors.

Mo­hammed’s LinkedIn pro­file still lists him as a man­ag­er at AM Sales.

AM Sales and Ser­vices re­ceived $12.6 mil­lion from URP be­tween 2018 and 2025.

Be­tween 2021 and 2024 alone, it col­lect­ed $10.6 mil­lion.

The ser­vices of­fered in­clud­ed: More than $65,000 in Sep­tem­ber 2019 for works/equip­ment as­so­ci­at­ed with a box drain at Tulip Av­enue, Point-a-Pierre; $28,966 in Au­gust 2020 for con­crete for works at Cale­bash Al­ley; more than $60,000 for con­crete paving in San­gre Grande; and $45,697.50 with­out de­scrip­tion in Ju­ly 2023.

AM Sales and Ser­vices was in­cor­po­rat­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2018, reg­is­tered to a Clax­ton Bay ad­dress and pro­vides hard­ware equip­ment and build­ing sup­plies.

A com­pa­ny with the same name was pre­vi­ous­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed in No­vem­ber 2004, but was re­moved from the com­pa­ny list­ing.

2018/2019 - $640,480

2019/2020 - $619, 345

2021/2022 - $4,392,758

2022/2023 - $3,206,402

2023/2024 - $2,988,668

2024/2025 - $758,154

Mean­while, the sec­ond com­pa­ny linked to Mo­hammed, SASA Dis­trib­u­tors, re­ceived $2.7 mil­lion from URP be­tween 2018 and 2025.

The ser­vices of­fered, among oth­ers, in­clud­ed $1,316 in Sep­tem­ber 2019 for ma­te­r­i­al for the con­struc­tion of a box drain at Tulip Av­enue; $22,948 for ‘Cou­va Build­ing Ren­o­va­tions’ in Feb­ru­ary 2022; $11,174 for ‘Head of Con­struc­tion, Ch­agua­nas’ in Au­gust 2022; and $58,500 for ‘Reg. 5 Build­ing Fin­ish’ in May 2024.

SASA was in­cor­po­rat­ed in Oc­to­ber 2006 and was reg­is­tered at a San Fer­nan­do ad­dress.

Mo­hammed was re­moved as a di­rec­tor in 2020, but two rel­a­tives with the same list­ed ad­dress re­mained as di­rec­tors.

2018/2019 - $6,230

2019/2020 - $20,535

2021/2022 - $930,531

2022/2023 - $812,153

2023/2024 - $537,482

2024/2025 - $399,543

For­mer URP Pro­gramme Man­ag­er In­dar Paras­ram con­firmed that Mo­hammed’s com­pa­nies re­ceived pay­ments.

“That is for ma­te­r­i­al pur­chase. That is not a con­tract. Con­tract is dif­fer­ent. A con­tract is when you award a ten­der. This is where you pur­chase ma­te­r­i­al to do in-house labour. Just sup­ply ma­te­r­i­al, noth­ing to do with con­tracts,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk called AM Sales and Ser­vices sev­er­al times over the last two weeks.

Em­ploy­ees said they could not give out Mo­hammed’s num­ber, but promised they would take a mes­sage and have him re­turn our calls for com­ment.

The calls were nev­er re­turned.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk then ob­tained Mo­hammed’s num­ber, but he did not an­swer calls or re­spond to mes­sages.

Emails were al­so sent, as well as mes­sages to Mo­hammed’s so­cial me­dia elec­tion cam­paign pages. No re­sponse was re­ceived.