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MINISTER in the Ministry of Housing Senator Anil Roberts said yesterday the Fraud Squad is being called in to investigate the selective payment of millions of dollars through State contracts by an official of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), to several companies connected to former government ministers. Roberts has alleged that one former minister with the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) administration was connected to the collection of millions of dollars in rental from the State, at a commercial rate for property which was approved for residential use. Speaking in the Senate on The Appropriation (Financial Year 2026) Bill, 2025, at the Red House, Port of Spain, Roberts raised the issue of a “politically-connected landlord”, and claimed that a managing director at the HDC had picked out contracts for payment before the April 2025 general election. Roberts said some $11.2 million was paid out to contracts from companies connected to former ministers and political figures. He also claimed that due process was not followed and that other citizens who were owed money by the State were not paid. Roberts said up to the last general election, a politically-connected landlord was still collecting money from the State at a commercial rate, while also having failed to meet a requirement to pay some $3 million as a result of collecting commercial fees for a residential property previously. Roberts said members of the previous government had recused themselves from the Cabinet some 652 times, each time in order to facilitate benefits to family, friends and financiers. He said the matter was being sent to the Attorney General and the Fraud Squad. Roberts questioned whether this was known to Opposition Senator Vishnu Dhanpaul, who served briefly as finance minister in the previous administration. He asked Dhanpaul “what would you say” and remarked that “you does run faster than Usain Bolt”. Roberts challenged that anyone who wanted to correct his statements could do so, including former AG, Senator Faris Al-Rawi. Roberts claimed money was being collected under false pretences and said the Fraud Squad would be investigating. He said another former PNM minister had gone on the public record to deny any practices of preferential treatment during his tenure. However, Roberts said a “certain powerful former PNM minister” who was a senator and a “big boy” was among those connected to payments through HDC which were selected. He said Pical Services Ltd was paid $6,367,000, the Rivulet Investment Company was paid some $2.8 million and Sure Services Ltd was paid $2.04 million. Roberts claimed the process was falsified in order for the payments to be made amd questioned the fairness to others who were owed. He said the HDC under the former government owed almost $1 billion for goods and services. Roberts said the board of directors at CEPEP was “duped” into authorising payments to companies with political connections, citing up to $1.4 billion. He claimed a former mayor of Point Fortin had benefited from contracts up to $2 million. (See Page 10). Roberts called on Laventille West MP Kareem Marcelle to answer, claiming Marcelle had benefited up to $2.7 million from CEPEP contracts. He also questioned Marcelle’s qualifications as a lawyer. Roberts called the former government “self-serving”, and said there were many women and single mothers in need of affordable housing. He said at least 850 people were begging for houses and the PNM had built 4,775 houses in the last decade. Roberts promised that a number of instances of fraud involving contracts and former members of government was to be investigated. He also knocked comments made previously by Al-Rawi that he would allow his children to cut grass, following terminations in CEPEP and URP. The minister said he had three children and imagined them in professions including law and medicine, but he did not see his children cutting grass in the hot sun—though he would be supportive if that was what they did.
