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Sunday, July 6, 2025

Hinds defends PM Rowley’s decision to reveal some findings of SSA audit

by

Jensen La Vende
362 days ago
20240709

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is de­fend­ing the de­ci­sion by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­veal part of the au­dit in­to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA).

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the me­dia at the launch of an an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive called Call to Or­der at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Hinds said the Prime Min­is­ter spoke when he felt it was nec­es­sary.

On Ju­ly 3, Row­ley said a cult in the SSA with high­ly-trained mil­i­tary op­er­a­tors, armed with the lat­est weapon­ry, was on a mis­sion to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment.

“Such per­sons be­longed to a cult which was arm­ing it­self while preach­ing a doc­trine for trained mil­i­tary and para­mil­i­tary per­son­nel with a re­li­gious call­ing to be the most suit­able to re­place the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship,” Dr Row­ley said.

On Sun­day, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira ac­cused Dr Row­ley of act­ing pre­ma­ture­ly in re­veal­ing some of the find­ings of the on­go­ing au­dit in­to the op­er­a­tions of the SSA, es­pe­cial­ly un­der the cloak of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege. Asked about this, Hinds said, “I didn’t think that the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments were pre­ma­ture. We’ve been deal­ing with this for months now. The Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty a few months ago his pre­lim­i­nary un­der­stand­ing of the facts and promised that he would keep the na­tion abreast.”

He added that last week the PM de­ter­mined it was a good time to up­date the coun­try, and he did.

Hinds said that as soon as the mat­ter came to the at­ten­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter, the head of the SSA, Ma­jor Roger Best, was re­placed.

Best was re­placed on March 2 by re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, who is con­duct­ing an au­dit of the SSA. Since then, three peo­ple have been charged, and 28 peo­ple have been fired from the agency. Those charged were self-pro­fessed spy and pas­tor of the church Ian Brown, Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, and Suzan Portell-Grif­fith, a for­mer se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor with the SSA.

Hinds said that as the au­dit con­tin­ues, po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions will al­so con­tin­ue. “What the Prime Min­is­ter al­so said was that all of these mat­ters are en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the po­lice, and it will be not just pre­ma­ture, but it will be too en­gag­ing. It will be cross­ing the line if the Prime Min­is­ter got in­volved in that as­pect of it,” Hinds said when asked how soon there will be ar­rests in the al­leged coup plot.

Us­ing mu­sic as a

crime-fight­ing tool

Mean­while, the Gov­ern­ment has launched a mu­sic com­pe­ti­tion among eight to 24 year-olds named Call to Or­der as they plan to use mu­sic as a crime-fight­ing tool.

Call to Or­der is a spin-off of the song “The Call” by lo­cal reg­gae singers Mr King (Mar­vin Lewis), Isas­ha (Bren­don Young), King David (David Nieves), Zig­gy Rankin (Khori Fran­cis), and Prophet Ben­jamin (De­von Samuel). Hinds said that af­ter hear­ing the song, he was moved to act and reached out to the men.

The out­come was a com­pe­ti­tion over the next three months where the com­peti­tors will be judged by likes and shares on so­cial me­dia plat­form In­sta­gram.

The com­pe­ti­tion will be in three cat­e­gories: eight to 12, 13 to 19, and 20 to 24. In a group of no more than five, the par­tic­i­pants will have to up­load their song touch­ing on end­ing vi­o­lence in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Hinds high­light­ed how reg­gae mu­sic guid­ed him as a young man.

Hinds sug­gest­ed a dance as­pect to the com­pe­ti­tion. The project aims to tar­get some 500,000 youth. The singers all en­cour­aged youths to use mu­sic as a rud­der to steer them away from crime.

Hinds said there is no lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties for the youth, but there is a “pulling force” that must be beat­en and sup­port­ed by the ini­tia­tive, as mu­sic has the pow­er to trans­form and heal. The com­pe­ti­tion win­ner for each cat­e­go­ry will re­ceive a record­ing ses­sion, video pro­duc­tion, and a tro­phy. The sec­ond and third-place groups will each re­ceive a tro­phy. 


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