Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Plans were made last year for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er to vis­it the base of the New Fly­ing Squad In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (NF­SIU). Warn­er was ex­pect­ed to vis­it the unit's head­quar­ters at Fac­to­ry Road, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, with the di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NSOC), Garvin Heer­ah.

Land­lord Richard Koorn, from whose premis­es the NF­SIU op­er­at­ed for four months, con­firmed to the T&T Guardian that the vis­it was brought to his at­ten­tion."I was told that the min­is­ter and Heer­ah were ex­pect­ed to come, and a taxi would be used," Koorn said, re­fus­ing to say any­thing fur­ther.

Warn­er did not re­spond to a text mes­sage seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the mat­ter and Heer­ah could not be con­tact­ed. He is said to have been in Ar­genti­na, but was due to re­turn yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, be­hind-the-scenes arrange­ments are be­ing made to reach a set­tle­ment with mem­bers of the NF­SIU in an at­tempt to bring an end to the fi­as­co.

Two se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ters met with three mem­bers of the NF­SIU on Thurs­day in an at­tempt to find a res­o­lu­tion. The of­fi­cials, sources said, were ex­pect­ed to meet again on Fri­day, but the meet­ing was post­poned.

The NSOC, the unit head­ed by Heer­ah, is un­der the purview of Warn­er's Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, which is re­spon­si­ble for the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for NSOC.Fund­ing for the eight ve­hi­cles leased from Mis­cel­la­neous Mar­ket­ing Ltd to the NF­SIU would have been sourced from the min­istry.

An in­ter­nal e-mail trail at the min­istry linked Heer­ah and the min­istry's ac­coun­tant, Rocky Pacheco, to the new Fly­ing Squad fi­as­co.Sources told T&T Guardian Thurs­day's meet­ing was prompt­ed by the fact that the Prime Min­is­ter is "very con­cerned" over the Fly­ing Squad and rapped Warn­er for his at­tempt to down­play the sit­u­a­tion.

Gath­er­ing storm

For the last three weeks, Warn­er has de­nied knowl­edge of the NF­SIU, whose ex­is­tence was re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly in the T&T Guardian on Feb­ru­ary 2.On Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er, he opt­ed to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the fi­as­co un­der his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio.

Pres­sure is mount­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take de­ci­sive ac­tion in light of the con­fir­ma­tion that the squad had been re­vived and was run­ning with­out of­fi­cial ap­proval or le­gal sanc­tion.

The PM asked Warn­er for a re­port on the unit. He was sched­uled to make a state­ment on it in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, but the PM in­struct­ed him to re­port to her first.Warn­er has im­plied Heer­ah act­ed of his own ac­cord and has in­struct­ed him to sub­mit a re­port, but Warn­er's ac­count con­tin­ues to raise ques­tions.

The T&T Guardian learnt that the ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by Warn­er on the Fly­ing Squad fi­as­co in Cab­i­net on Thurs­day in the PM's ab­sence is not sit­ting well with sev­er­al of his min­is­te­r­i­al col­leagues."What we were told is that the di­rec­tor act­ed with­out in­form­ing him and he was not aware...The mat­ter is some­thing to be con­cerned about," a se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter dis­closed.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj have called for Warn­er to be re­moved from of­fice.

Re­birth of the squad

The PM, who is head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, said last year that she was leav­ing it up to Warn­er to de­cide if he want­ed to bring back a unit fash­ioned af­ter the in­fa­mous Fly­ing Squad.New in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by the T&T Guardian shows that two oth­er min­istry of­fi­cials were al­so in­stru­men­tal in as­sist­ing the NF­SIU to get off the ground.

Set up in Ju­ly last year, the unit se­cret­ly op­er­at­ed from a build­ing at Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, and then re­lo­cat­ed to Arou­ca.Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams has re­peat­ed­ly said he did not sanc­tion the set­ting up of the NF­SIU and knew noth­ing about it un­til he read the T&T Guardian's sto­ry.