Richard Lord

Some 686 of­fi­cers as­signed to the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T (Sautt) are to lose a $5,000 month­ly al­lowance when the unit is dis­band­ed and they re­turn to their sub­stan­tive jobs with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fence Force and the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment in Sep­tem­ber. This was re­vealed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy, dur­ing yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair. Sandy said Cab­i­net agreed to the es­tab­lish­ment of the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency (NIA) as the sin­gle agency to han­dle all in­tel­li­gence in T&T.

He said the NIA "should be ful­ly op­er­a­tional by Sep­tem­ber 1, 2011." A day ear­li­er, on In­de­pen­dence Day, Au­gust 31, the Sautt would cease to ex­ist as a unit, Sandy added. He said a three-mem­ber spe­cial im­ple­men­ta­tion team, head­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams, would be man­dat­ed to en­sure the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions ap­proved by Cab­i­net. Asked to com­ment on the $5,000 re­duc­tion in the com­pen­sa­tion pack­age of the Sautt of­fi­cers, Sandy said: "Well, I am sure it will be hard for them to read­just." He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that "you must take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, as well, that the units that they will be re­turn­ing to them­selves will be af­ford­ed some el­e­ment of in­crease."

Sandy said that was based on on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for a new col­lec­tive agree­ment with the Gov­ern­ment's Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO). Asked to re­spond to a com­ment by Min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry Sub­has Pan­day that Sautt would not be dis­band­ed, Sandy said: "Re­mem­ber, we are still in a stage of ac­cept­ing the rec­om­men­da­tion, so we can­not say Sautt will be dis­band­ed. "The rec­om­men­da­tions are there, you may very well find that the im­ple­men­ta­tion team come and rec­om­mend that it ought not to be, which I mean is un­like­ly, but you can­not say some­thing is hap­pen­ing if it has not hap­pened," he said.

He then stressed that the Au­gust date for Sautt to cease to ex­ist was a rec­om­men­da­tion. He, how­ev­er, added: "We ex­pect it (Sautt) to be (dis­band­ed)." Sandy said the blimp was al­so to be ground­ed per­ma­nent­ly. He said those were among the rec­om­men­da­tions sub­mit­ted by a Steer­ing Com­mit­tee which was es­tab­lished last Sep­tem­ber and al­so head­ed by Williams to look at the re­struc­tur­ing of Sautt.

Sandy said those rec­om­men­da­tions were sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net last De­cem­ber for its con­sid­er­a­tion.

He list­ed some of the rec­om­men­da­tions which were ap­proved by Cab­i­net:

• Sautt is ex­pect­ed to cease op­er­a­tions as an en­ti­ty by Au­gust 31, 2011.

• There is to be the es­tab­lish­ment of a sin­gle na­tion­al in­tel­li­gence agency.

• Ter­mi­na­tion of the con­tracts of all UK per­son­nel as­signed to Sautt by April 30, 2011.

Sandy said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment would like to thank those for­eign of­fi­cers for their con­tri­bu­tion in the fight against crime in T&T over the past few years. He said the im­ple­men­ta­tion team was ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the rec­om­men­da­tion for all 686 ser­vice of­fi­cers as­signed to Sautt.

"It is rec­om­mend­ed that all units go­ing back to their par­ent unit ought not to be com­pro­mised and they ought to stay to­geth­er," he added. Of­fi­cers from the Po­lice Ser­vice, the De­fence Force and the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment were sec­ond­ed to Sautt when it was es­tab­lished un­der the for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. Sandy said the main rea­sons why Sautt was be­ing dis­band­ed were that it was il­le­gal and that it was seen as a par­al­lel or­gan­i­sa­tion to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

He ad­mit­ted that some good has come out of the op­er­a­tions of Sautt. He said an­oth­er rec­om­men­da­tion was that "all com­mu­ni­ca­tion/in­ter­cept tech­nol­o­gy and op­er­a­tions be lo­cat­ed with­in the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency to avoid re­dun­dan­cies and pos­si­ble abuse." Sandy said the team al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the air­ship or blimp "be de­com­mis­sioned im­me­di­ate­ly and sold," and that the pho­to­graph­ic in­stru­ments be re­as­signed to the he­li­copter plat­forms.