PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC -Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley stated Wednesday that an audit of the Strategic Providers Company (SSA) has discovered that it adopted an “unapproved organizational design and construction and staffing” with out the required data of the competent authorities.
In March, the federal government confirmed Main Roger Finest’s elimination as SSA director and changed him with Ambassador Brigadier Anthony Phillips-Spencer, who had been recalled from Washington, the place he served because the nation’s ambassador to america.
Main Finest is amongst simply over a dozen folks fired from the SSA because the authorities introduced that one thing amiss was occurring on the company. The self-proclaimed spy Pastor Ian Brown, who’s beneath police investigation, was fired as a Particular Reserve Police officer on March 19.
In an announcement made in Parliament, Rowley stated that the SSA was established in 1995 to information the formulation and implementation of nationwide insurance policies on illicit trafficking of harmful medication and associated felony actions.
However he informed legislators that since March 4 this 12 months, an intensive inside evaluate and audit of the SSA has been ongoing and that it had been found that the “unapproved group construction and staffing “ had been undertaken with out the required permission of both the Cupboard, the Nationwide Safety Council or the Minister of Nationwide Safety. Watch video
“For instance, the SSA established and operated a extremely educated and militarised so-called “Tactical Response Unit” for operational functions. This unit was examined and abolished in March 2024 as a part of the audit evaluate. Its operations earlier than March 2024 are beneath evaluate by SSA and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS),” Rowley stated.
“Why would an intelligence-gathering group, with a mandate to gather and share data with operational models in different regulation enforcement and protection companies, discover it essential to secretly have an operational unit of that nature and magnitude?
“For what function was such a Unit established in an intelligence-gathering company? What was their function? What did they do? These questions are nonetheless to be absolutely understood and answered, forming the topic of police investigation. Within the meantime, The Nationwide Safety Council views this growth with nice concern.”
Rowley stated that in March this 12 months, 28 SSA staff had been terminated, both for violating the SSA Act and Rules or for anomalous recruitment or defective promotion processes and practices.
Prime Minister Rowley informed legislators that the audit additionally discovered disturbing practices of nepotism and opportunism.
“For instance, a number of relations and associates of explicit individuals and a particular church had been discovered to have been secretly employed on this company.
“Such individuals belonged to a cult which was arming itself whereas preaching a doctrine for educated navy and paramilitary personnel with a non secular calling to be essentially the most appropriate to interchange the nation’s political management.”
Rowley stated they had been exerting excessive ranges of affect on the company’s affairs to the detriment of Nationwide Safety and that “many of those individuals had been by no means polygraphed or in any other case screened or integrity-tested, this being an absolute important given the character and mandate of the company.”
Rowley stated the audit features a preliminary evaluate of the Polygraph Coverage, revealed in April 2022.
He stated cases of dishonesty and deep deception have additionally been found.
“For instance, the composition of a Strategic Providers Company’s delegation was licensed to journey overseas on official enterprise, after which a non-employee of the company was inexplicably inserted into the delegation within the place of an worker who was authorised for the delegation.”
Rowley stated that the audit discovered a transparent want for improved administration of the Managed Tools and Provides Stock (CESIM) to accommodate and deal with the elevated inventory of firearms and ammunition now possessed by the SSA, in addition to security-related Info communication and expertise (ICT) and different technical tools and provides.
Rowley informed Parliament that in 2017, the SSA bought 8,000 rounds of 9-millimeter (mm) ammunition, however by 2022, the quantity bought throughout that 12 months was 100,000 rounds.
He stated that whereas arming itself, the SSA Company didn’t disaggregate ammunition held for operational use from ammunition saved for coaching by worldwide finest practices.
“Equally, whereas in 2016, the SSA held a mere 24irearms, consisting of pistols or revolvers, since 2021, the variety of firearms held by the SSA elevated to 103 of various varieties and calibers, together with navy grade.
“Why would an intelligence-gathering company want 103 firearms of various varieties and caliber, and why would the company, in 2022, want 100,000 rounds of ammunition? “
Rowley stated shockingly, the audit found that the previous director of the SSA initiated the procurement of high-grade navy bolt-action rifles, full with essentially the most fashionable silencers and different equipment, and the SSA was engaged in coaching specifically chosen questionably employed personnel within the ability of utilizing such weapons.
He stated it was solely on November 1, 2023, upon the request from the then SSA director, for the company to bear arms in sure restricted circumstances and persuasive causes provided, that Cupboard authorised and Parliament licensed SSA staffers to maintain and carry concealable pistols, whether or not on obligation or not.
Nonetheless, Rowley stated that this matter is gaining the eye of the police.
He stated one side of the audit has thus far revealed that the use and whereabouts of 70,000 rounds of ammunition bought by the SSA “stay unrecorded and unaccounted for. “This matter, too, stays the topic of constant audit and police investigation, whereas corrective motion has been taken regarding managing arms and ammunition stock. “
He stated that the corrective actions embrace a evaluate of the Firearms and Ammunition Coverage revealed in April 2022 and the procurement and use of autos, firearms, and ammunition stock checks in any respect SSA places.
Rowley stated that previous to that authorized November 2023 authorisation, the Nationwide Safety Council of the federal government was not conscious that the SSA possessed these ranges of arms and ammunition or that it was actively engaged in in depth weapons coaching and procuring and consuming massive volumes of ammunition.
“There was by no means a funds within the SSA to buy military-grade weapons, nor was the NSC ever knowledgeable of any such actions or that such capabilities had been being developed throughout the SSA. This didn’t forestall the SSA from making half cost for military-grade weapons with suppression capabilities.”
Rowley informed legislators that a number of police investigations are ongoing.
He stated that among the many firearms and ammunition the SSA acquired within the interval beneath evaluate, a number of had been issued from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Armoury to the Particular Operations Response Staff (SORT).
“The required report retaining and statements of the difficulty are fairly muddled or, in some cases, even non-existent. These firearms had been chronicled within the Particular Operations Response Staff’s (SORT) Firearm register,” Rowley stated.
He stated that this Particular Operations Response Staff (SORT) has since been disbanded “as a result of it grew to become entangled in allegations of significant human rights abuses and uncovered the federal government of Trinidad and Tobago to United States sanctions flowing from the assumed violation of america, Leahy Act.
“This Madam Speaker concerned the killings the place a Commissioner of Police stated it and subordinates that individuals in police custody died once they “fell off a chair.” Solely just lately, this sick joke was repeated by a former Commissioner of Police who used the stated clarification to guarantee the general public that the unfortunates who fell off the chair “might by no means rape anyone once more.”
Rowley stated the upshot is that the SSA Guard Unit transferred arms and ammunition belonging to the TTPS with out authority, ostensibly for official use.
“That issuance was in clear breach of the Trinidad and Tobago Firearms Act, leading to police personnel being charged for sure felony offenses about it. As well as, a former worker of the SSA, who was celebration to that transaction, was additionally charged about it.”
He stated police investigations have since revealed that the “Guard Unit” on the SSA by no means acquired the firearms and ammunition, because the related paperwork declared.
He stated an audit of firearms and ammunition issued to the SSA didn’t reveal their presence.
However Rowley stated that on March 5 this 12 months, “a self-described “spy,” who was additionally appointed a Particular Reserve Police Officer, by the then Commissioner of Police, appeared on the Cumuto Barracks and voluntarily handed over a cache of firearms and ammunition, to a member of the Nationwide Operations Job Pressure, situated on the identical camp.
Subsequent investigations confirmed that these weapons got here from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service by switch to the SSA earlier than it was licensed to have any such weapons.
“These firearms had been submitted to the related nationwide safety company for evaluation and had been confirmed to be computerized weapons. Arising out of those associated issues, the police personnel and former SSA staff had been all arrested and charged with a number of felony offenses.
“It’s nonetheless to be decided the place these weapons had been stashed, whether or not they had been ever fired and if that’s the case, in what operations, for what function and beneath whose authority and direct management,” Rowley stated, including that a number of members of the SSA and former members are the topic of continued investigations by the TTPS, in respect of sure motor autos, at the moment and beforehand assigned to the SSA.
“Madam Speaker, with out saying way more, suffice it to say that there’s way more investigative work to be completed because the requisite policing companies proceed to comply with the proof.
“Efforts are nicely underway to rebuild the SSA to make sure that its core mandate is discharged and that it operates throughout the regulation within the fingers of people that respect their function and recognize their coaching, thereby making the rejuvenated SSA stronger, extra skilled and much more match for function,” Rowley stated.
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