Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds says there is no re­port from the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) au­dit to be laid in Par­lia­ment, and any calls to do so are pre­ma­ture. He said the au­dit was in­com­plete.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Hinds said the call from Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal on Thurs­day for the full re­port to be laid in Par­lia­ment through a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was fool­ish­ness. A day af­ter Mooni­lal’s call, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar chas­tised Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for not nam­ing mem­bers of a sup­posed cult aimed at over­throw­ing the Gov­ern­ment. She said what Dr Row­ley did was mere­ly a dis­trac­tion be­cause of his in­abil­i­ty to prop­er­ly gov­ern the coun­try.

Four months af­ter the coun­try was first alert­ed to sup­posed wrong­do­ings with­in the SSA by Dr Row­ley, he gave an up­date in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day. Dr Row­ley said a cult with hand-picked mem­bers of the mil­i­tary was be­ing trained to oust the Gov­ern­ment.

He said the au­dit dis­cov­ered that “the for­mer SSA di­rec­tor ini­ti­at­ed the pro­cure­ment of high-grade mil­i­tary bolt-ac­tion ri­fles, com­plete with the most mod­ern si­lencers and oth­er ac­ces­sories; and the SSA was en­gaged in train­ing spe­cial­ly se­lect­ed ques­tion­ably hired per­son­nel in the skill of the use of such weapons.” The PM al­so said 70,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion pro­cured by the SSA were un­ac­count­ed for.

Hinds re­as­sured that the coup plot was un­earthed in time, the State act­ed prompt­ly, and the au­dit is on­go­ing.

In a voice note is­sued to the me­dia on Thurs­day, Mooni­lal called for Dr Row­ley to de­tail the full re­port from the au­dit, say­ing what was said in Par­lia­ment was “in­cred­i­ble”.

Asked about this, Hinds ques­tioned what re­port Mooni­lal was re­fer­ring to. “The au­dit is not com­plete! What re­port are you talk­ing about? You all are al­low­ing Mooni­lal to mis­lead you with stu­pid­i­ty; you can quote me on that. The au­dit is not com­plete. I made that pel­lu­cid­ly clear, and there­fore, which re­port are you talk­ing about?”

Hinds said the Prime Min­is­ter was keep­ing his word in up­dat­ing the coun­try on the lat­est with the SSA af­ter he called for the im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of its then di­rec­tor, Ma­jor Roger Best.

Best’s ser­vices were ter­mi­nat­ed in May.

Self-pro­fessed spy pas­tor Ian Brown and two oth­er ex-SSA em­ploy­ees were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

The PM re­vealed on Wednes­day that in March, 28 em­ploy­ees were ter­mi­nat­ed, ei­ther for vi­o­la­tions of the SSA Act and Reg­u­la­tions, anom­alous re­cruit­ment, or faulty pro­mo­tion process­es and prac­tices.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley chose the sanc­ti­ty of Par­lia­ment to speak of un­named cult mem­bers stock­pil­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment.

“On Ju­ly 3, 2024, un­der par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, Kei­th Row­ley en­ter­tained the na­tion with a sto­ry about a re­li­gious cult op­er­at­ing with­in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency. He claimed this cult had been stock­pil­ing weapons to ef­fect a coup and re­place his Gov­ern­ment. Fas­ci­nat­ing­ly, no mem­bers of this cult have been crim­i­nal­ly charged for plot­ting the al­leged coup to date.

“They are or­ches­trat­ing a di­ver­sion to turn at­ten­tion away from crit­i­cal is­sues such as cor­rup­tion ac­cused (Naveen) Jin­dal, crime, prop­er­ty tax­es, forex short­ages, job­less­ness, in­creas­ing util­i­ty rates, high food prices, pover­ty, and oth­er neg­a­tive is­sues plagu­ing the coun­try.”

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are at a “sen­si­tive stage” and they could not di­vulge whether any­one is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for trea­son. 

Se­nior of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said in­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue and “dis­clo­sures would be made as soon as it is com­plet­ed.”

One per­son said, “We can­not say any­thing to com­pro­mise the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

—Re­port­ing by An­na-Lisa Paul