Head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment, and by ex­ten­sion the coun­try, had been “blind­sided” by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) de­ba­cle. 

In March Row­ley ad­vised that re­tired Ma­jor Roger Best be sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave as the top spy agency un­der­went a com­plete au­dit by for­mer Am­bas­sador to the US, re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer. On Sat­ur­day, Best was fired. His ter­mi­na­tion came days af­ter he was ar­rest­ed and ques­tioned in re­la­tion to state is­sued firearms.  

Best, his re­li­gious ad­vi­sor, Pas­tor Ian Brown and two oth­er SSA mem­bers, Portell Grif­fith, a for­mer se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor, and Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, a tac­ti­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer, were re­leased from po­lice cus­tody on Sat­ur­day. The four were held dur­ing a 24-hour po­lice raid be­tween Wednes­day and Thurs­day. 

DCP Suzette Mar­tin, in a text mes­sage re­sponse about the re­lease of the men, said in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing. The four men were or­dered to be re­leased from po­lice cus­tody by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard SC, on Sat­ur­day.  

Asked for an up­date on SSA, the Prime Min­is­ter said while the Gov­ern­ment was blind­sided, it was in­formed ear­ly that some­thing was amiss at the agency, which he said was ap­proached with “vigour and com­mit­ment.” 

“There is an on­go­ing very se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion that is tak­ing place and as I said be­fore some of what has been un­earthed in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been quite trou­ble­some with im­pres­sions of crim­i­nal con­duct,” he said. 

With­out call­ing Best by name, Row­ley said Cab­i­net did not hes­i­tate to act against those who seem­ing­ly fell short in do­ing their jobs; adding: “We ex­pect that we will rec­ti­fy and re­turn the agency to its pur­pose.”  

Asked about for­mer Air Guard cap­tain Kester Weekes, who re­port­ed­ly in­tro­duced Best to Brown and was sta­tioned with Phillips-Spencer in Wash­ing­ton be­fore his re­call to head SSA, the Prime Min­is­ter said Weekes was re­called some three weeks ago.  

He added that the au­dit spear­head­ed by Phillips-Spencer will ad­dress per­son­nel, process­es and in­fra­struc­ture, and will al­so in­clude any pos­si­ble con­nec­tion be­tween Weekes, Brown and Best.  

Asked if he was con­cerned that there could be any con­flict of in­ter­est with the probe giv­en that Weekes and Phillips-Spencer had worked to­geth­er, Row­ley said, “No, that doesn’t arise.” 

Re­gard­ing the fu­ture of the SSA and who would re­place Best, the PM said, “The re­place­ment has been tak­en care of long time. When we re­alised we had a prob­lem of this na­ture, the Gov­ern­ment act­ed swift­ly. There is an act­ing ap­point­ment there with all the au­thor­i­ties of the of­fice and for the time be­ing, that will be sat­is­fac­to­ry as we try to get to the bot­tom of what was go­ing on in the SSA.” 

He re­it­er­at­ed that what has been dis­cov­ered to date is “trou­bling” and when the time comes for a per­ma­nent re­place­ment, Phillips-Spencer is as “good an of­fi­cer as we can get.”