Former high Trinidadian safety consultants have scoffed at claims by Prime Minister Keith Rowley that top stage officers at a particular state safety company had been plotting a coup towards his authorities due to info authorities have unearthed from an audit of operations.
Addressing parliament final week, Rowley had steered that the management of the Strategic Companies Company (SSA) throughout the safety ministry had been enterprise a sequence of questionable actions in current months together with an pointless stockpiling of handguns, excessive powered rifles with the newest silencers and different items of kit. He stated they should have had plans to unseat the governing Folks’s Nationwide Motion (PNM).
“Such individuals belonged to a cult which was arming itself whereas preaching a doctrine for skilled army and paramilitary personnel with a spiritual calling to be essentially the most appropriate individuals to exchange the nation’s political management. They had been exerting excessive ranges of affect on the affairs of the company to the detriment of nationwide safety,” he informed the home.
Opposition chief Kamla Persad Bissessar has additionally scoffed at Rowley’s remarks at the same time as he has stated {that a} detailed investigation remains to be ongoing into the operations of the unit. A number of high-level officers have been fired whereas others have stop.
On the weekend, the main island newspapers carried reactions from former senior SSA officers together with dismissed former Director Main Roger Greatest. Greatest made it clear he would by no means be a part of any plot to unseat a sitting authorities.
“The point out of me main a coup or any type of destabilization shouldn’t be solely preposterous however ludicrous,” he informed the Sunday Guardian.
Persad Bissesar argued that “fascinatingly, no members of this cult have been criminally charged for plotting the alleged coup up to now.
It is usually noteworthy that Rowley’s allegations had been made underneath parliamentary privilege to forestall any authorized motion from being taken for defamation. This story sounds remarkably acquainted: a spiritual group stockpiling ammunition to overthrow the elected authorities. Did they plan to do it later this July as effectively? On July twenty seventh? Did he get this info by way of e mail? Rowley and his public relations crew are usually not simply spinning a distraction. They’re orchestrating a diversion to show consideration away from crucial points reminiscent of corruption accused Jindal, crime, property taxes, foreign exchange shortages, joblessness, growing utility charges, excessive meals costs, poverty, and different adverse points plaguing the nation,” she stated.
Reacting to media queries, Safety Minister Fitz Hinds has stated that regardless of the issues on the company, it won’t be shut down or disbanded. “This is a vital state company based on regulation and a mandate to hold out. You must be part of me in being extraordinarily overjoyed at the truth that one thing went fallacious, it’s being investigated and on the identical time, the core enterprise of the company continues as a result of it continues to hold out its work,” Hinds informed the Specific newspaper.
The SSA has been beset by allegations of corruption and nepotism and costs that members of a selected church in Trinidad had been favored for employment on the company.
“Shockingly, the audit found that the previous SSA director initiated the procurement of high-grade army bolt-action rifles, full with essentially the most trendy silencers and different equipment. The SSA was engaged in coaching specifically chosen questionably employed personnel within the ability of using such weapons.” He additionally stated that the company had established a extremely militarized and skilled tactical response unit however authorities are uncertain of what precisely it did. “Why would an intelligence-gathering group, with a mandate to gather and share info with operational items in different regulation enforcement and protection businesses, discover it essential to secretly have an operational unit of that nature and magnitude,”? Rowley said.
