PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC -Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley said Wednesday that an audit of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) has found that it adopted an “unapproved organizational design and structure and staffing” without the required knowledge of the competent authorities.
In March, the government confirmed Major Roger Best’s removal as SSA director and replaced him with Ambassador Brigadier Anthony Phillips-Spencer, who had been recalled from Washington, where he served as the country’s ambassador to the United States.
Major Best is among just over a dozen people fired from the SSA since the government announced that something amiss was happening at the agency. The self-proclaimed spy Pastor Ian Brown, who is under police investigation, was fired as a Special Reserve Police officer on March 19.
In a statement made in Parliament, Rowley said that the SSA was established in 1995 to guide the formulation and implementation of national policies on illicit trafficking of dangerous drugs and related criminal activities.
But he told legislators that since March 4 this year, an extensive internal review and audit of the SSA has been ongoing and that it had been discovered that the “unapproved organization structure and staffing “ had been undertaken without the required permission of either the Cabinet, the National Security Council or the Minister of National Security. Watch video
“For example, the SSA established and operated a highly trained and militarised so-called “Tactical Response Unit” for operational purposes. This unit was examined and abolished in March 2024 as part of the audit review. Its operations before March 2024 are under review by SSA and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS),” Rowley said.
“Why would an intelligence-gathering organization, with a mandate to collect and share information with operational units in other law enforcement and defense agencies, find it necessary to secretly have an operational unit of that nature and magnitude?
“For what purpose was such a Unit established in an intelligence-gathering agency? What was their role? What did they do? These questions are still to be fully understood and answered, forming the subject of police investigation. In the meantime, The National Security Council views this development with great concern.”
Rowley said that in March this year, 28 SSA employees were terminated, either for violating the SSA Act and Regulations or for anomalous recruitment or faulty promotion processes and practices.
Prime Minister Rowley told legislators that the audit also found disturbing practices of nepotism and opportunism.
“For example, several family members and associates of particular persons and a specific church were found to have been secretly employed in this agency.
“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.”
Rowley said they were exerting high levels of influence on the agency’s affairs to the detriment of National Security and that “many of these persons were never polygraphed or otherwise screened or integrity-tested, this being an absolute essential given the nature and mandate of the agency.”
Rowley said the audit includes a preliminary review of the Polygraph Policy, published in April 2022.
He said instances of dishonesty and deep deception have also been discovered.
“For example, the composition of a Strategic Services Agency’s delegation was authorized to travel abroad on official business, after which a non-employee of the agency was inexplicably inserted into the delegation in the place of an employee who was approved for the delegation.”
Rowley said that the audit found a clear need for improved management of the Controlled Equipment and Supplies Inventory (CESIM) to accommodate and treat the increased stock of firearms and ammunition now possessed by the SSA, as well as security-related Information communication and technology (ICT) and other technical equipment and supplies.
Rowley told Parliament that in 2017, the SSA purchased 8,000 rounds of 9-millimeter (mm) ammunition, but by 2022, the amount purchased during that year was 100,000 rounds.
He said that while arming itself, the SSA Agency did not disaggregate ammunition held for operational use from ammunition stored for training by international best practices.
“Similarly, whereas in 2016, the SSA held a mere 24irearms, consisting of pistols or revolvers, since 2021, the number of firearms held by the SSA increased to 103 of different types and calibers, including military grade.
“Why would an intelligence-gathering agency need 103 firearms of different types and caliber, and why would the agency, in 2022, need 100,000 rounds of ammunition? “
Rowley said shockingly, the audit discovered that the former director of the SSA 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 using such weapons.
He said it was only on November 1, 2023, upon the request from the then SSA director, for the agency to bear arms in certain restricted circumstances and persuasive reasons offered, that Cabinet approved and Parliament authorized SSA staffers to keep and carry concealable pistols, whether on duty or not.
However, Rowley said that this matter is gaining the attention of the police.
He said one aspect of the audit has so far revealed that the use and whereabouts of 70,000 rounds of ammunition purchased by the SSA “remain unrecorded and unaccounted for. “This matter, too, remains the subject of continuing audit and police investigation, while corrective action has been taken concerning managing arms and ammunition inventory. “
He said that the corrective actions include a review of the Firearms and Ammunition Policy published in April 2022 and the procurement and use of vehicles, firearms, and ammunition inventory checks at all SSA locations.
Rowley said that prior to that legal November 2023 authorisation, the National Security Council of the government was not aware that the SSA possessed those levels of arms and ammunition or that it was actively engaged in extensive weapons training and procuring and consuming large volumes of ammunition.
“There was never a budget in the SSA to purchase military-grade weapons, nor was the NSC ever informed of any such activities or that such capabilities were being developed within the SSA. This did not prevent the SSA from making part payment for military-grade weapons with suppression capabilities.”
Rowley told legislators that several police investigations are ongoing.
He said that among the firearms and ammunition the SSA acquired in the period under review, several were issued from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Armoury to the Special Operations Response Team (SORT).
“The necessary record keeping and statements of the issue are quite muddled or, in some instances, even non-existent. These firearms were chronicled in the Special Operations Response Team’s (SORT) Firearm register,” Rowley said.
He said that this Special Operations Response Team (SORT) has since been disbanded “because it became entangled in allegations of serious human rights abuses and exposed the government of Trinidad and Tobago to United States sanctions flowing from the assumed violation of the United States, Leahy Act.
“This Madam Speaker involved the killings where a Commissioner of Police said it and subordinates that persons in police custody died when they “fell off a chair.” Only recently, this sick joke was repeated by a former Commissioner of Police who used the said explanation to assure the public that the unfortunates who fell off the chair “could never rape anybody again.”
Rowley said the upshot is that the SSA Guard Unit transferred arms and ammunition belonging to the TTPS without authority, ostensibly for official use.
“That issuance was in clear breach of the Trinidad and Tobago Firearms Act, resulting in police personnel being charged for certain criminal offenses about it. In addition, a former employee of the SSA, who was party to that transaction, was also charged about it.”
He said police investigations have since revealed that the “Guard Unit” at the SSA never received the firearms and ammunition, as the relevant documents declared.
He said an audit of firearms and ammunition issued to the SSA did not reveal their presence.
But Rowley said that on March 5 this year, “a self-described “spy,” who was also appointed a Special Reserve Police Officer, by the then Commissioner of Police, appeared at the Cumuto Barracks and voluntarily handed over a cache of firearms and ammunition, to a member of the National Operations Task Force, located at the same camp.
Subsequent investigations confirmed that these weapons came from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service through transfer to the SSA before it was authorized to have any such weapons.
“These firearms were submitted to the relevant national security agency for analysis and were confirmed to be automatic weapons. Arising out of these related matters, the police personnel and former SSA employees were all arrested and charged with several criminal offenses.
“It is still to be determined where these weapons were stashed, whether they were ever fired and if so, in what operations, for what purpose and under whose authority and direct control,” Rowley said, adding that several members of the SSA and former members are the subject of continued investigations by the TTPS, in respect of certain motor vehicles, currently and previously assigned to the SSA.
“Madam Speaker, without saying much more, suffice it to say that there is much more investigative work to be done as the requisite policing agencies continue to follow the evidence.
“Efforts are well underway to rebuild the SSA to ensure that its core mandate is discharged and that it operates within the law in the hands of people who respect their role and appreciate their training, thereby making the rejuvenated SSA stronger, more professional and even more fit for purpose,” Rowley said.
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