Independent Liberal Party (ILP) leader Jack Warner is questioning why Acting Commissioner of Police, Stephen Williams, agreed to the reported $5 million buyout offered to pay for the leave of several First Division police officers.
Speaking to supporters at a party meeting at Ojoe Road, Sangre Grande on Thursday night, Warner questioned the timing of the proposed payments and said the relevant Cabinet note coincided with the alleged drug find at Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's private home in April 2013.
Williams has said he approached National Security Minister Carl Alfonso with a proposal for the government to buyout the leave of all officers of the First Division who has accumulated over 90 days leave and Alfonso said that issue had not yet been taken to Cabinet. The Police Association has objected to Williams' proposal and threatened to challenge the decision in court.
Warner said while Persad-Bissessar's private security detail requested the leave buyout in April 2012, it was only one year later that it was done.
He said that the buyout of that leave of the Prime Minister's special branch detail was never discussed with Williams.
"This time the acting Commissioner of Police was consulted and agreed to buyout the leave but for me and for you that creates a sense of anxiety and therefore I am saying there is more in the mortar than the pestle," he said.
Warner said that Williams, just weeks before agreeing to the $5 million buyout, dismissed a much smaller payout of $500,000 to former Head of the Homicide Bureau ACP Wayne Dick last October.
"He said no but mere weeks afterward, he says yes. How come now, when there is an investigation into the alleged conspiracy to conceal the find of a plant-like substance at the Prime Minister home, how come now everybody agrees to buyout the leave of the top brass of the police. How come now?," he said, describing it as a conflict of interest since it is the same group that is expected to investigate the alleged drug find at Persad-Bissessar's home.
Warner continued to also question the pre-existing relationship between Persad-Bissessar and her neighbour Kristyan Gokool, describing him as the "six-million dollar man."
"He has some questions to answer. I won't quibble tonight about who owns the house because in due course that would be revealed," he said.
He said though that the Financial Intelligence Unit needed to investigate Gokool's own admission that he purchased the mansion without a mortgage through a series of cheques from his father, Daniel Gokool, owner of Danny Enterprises Ltd.
"The gift was given to him by the company, not his father," Warner said, adding that the company allegedly received million dollar contracts from the Government without no competitive bidding.
He called for a thorough investigation but asked who would head up that investigation since the leave of the top police brass was going to be bought out by the Government.