The issue of “Who’s Going to Guard the Guards” at the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) is that the piercing insight of deceased calypso composer Winsford "Joker" Devine should not have been raised after the fact, but that a strengthening of the structure, functioning of the organisation, and constant scrutiny of the leaders should have been a sine qua non – an absolute necessity built into this major security agency.
The failure to have not only structured the organisation in a way that could have avoided the country’s security being exposed is compounded with interest, as it is not a first time happening.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in her role as prime minister (2010-2015), also appointed a telephone operator to head the SSA, and she and her ministers tried to defend the absurdity of Reshmi Ramnarine's appointment before public outcry forced her firing.
The appointment of Major Roger Best as SSA director was of a completely different nature (and this editorial is not making any allegation against him), but after the previous madness, that a successor government would not have learnt from that experience, and put in place a countervailing system to upgrade the quality of the SSA was basic in mind-boggling.
The incumbent Government did not learn from the Persad-Bissessar disaster.
If, in fact, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and his Government did insert a rigorous monitoring system to close-mark the leaders and operations of the SSA, that has been a dramatic failure, given all that is now emerging about questionable hires and operations of the organisation. How could all of what has so far been revealed, and undoubtedly more to come, have been going on in this major security agency for so long without detection, is a critical question to be asked and answered. If not an intervention now, what could have been the results of this ticking time bomb?
There is another very important aspect of this matter which needs attention. In typical reflex opposition politics style, all the Opposition United National Congress and leader Persad-Bissessar are doing is to shout for details, and charge that the Prime Minister is seeking to establish a police state.
Instead of trotting-out those empty and tired allegations and making calls for the Prime Minister to say why the director of the SSA was sent on leave, and demand that he should make a full disclosure on a matter at the start of an investigation, the Opposition should have been castigating the Government for leaving the SSA in an organisationally vulnerable position.
In this respect, it cannot be stated often enough that the post-Independence politics of mindless opposition for the sake of it has not advanced the political organisation of the country.
But just so that this last point is not misunderstood, nothing can wash the Government clean for not learning from the previous lessons and so restructuring the SSA. In fact, that Prime Minister Rowley did not exert even tighter scrutiny of the leadership and functioning of the organisation is a serious indictment on him and his Government.
At the end of the ongoing, and whatever lawful and reasonable action can be taken against the perpetrators, the re-organisation of the SSA is surely a major agenda item which must be immediately done.