Se­nior sources of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) say that of­fi­cials in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have asked for a re­port af­ter a Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tion about a ve­hi­cle rack­et un­cov­ered at the force’s Cu­mu­to bar­racks.

Yes­ter­day the TTDF main­tained that it re­mains trans­par­ent and ac­count­able to the pop­u­la­tion in mat­ters even sur­round­ing its own of­fi­cers- as the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­spond­ed to a tele­vised and pub­lished re­port.

But while the force made ref­er­ence to a miss­ing ve­hi­cle in 2018 that was ven­ti­lat­ed in the pub­lic do­main- in which an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had since been launched, the TTDF still did not ad­dress the is­sue of the miss­ing army trucks re­moved from the Cu­mu­to bar­racks some­time be­tween 2006-2007 raised in the Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The month-long Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that some 24 Ca­roni 1975 Lim­it­ed ve­hi­cles were turned over to the TTDF af­ter the sug­ar gi­ant shut down its man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions in the ear­ly 2000s.

Se­nior sources at the TTDF said that two of the trucks that were out­fit­ted with reg­i­ment plates 5TTR-94 and 5TTR-95 were re­moved from the Cu­mu­to bar­racks with­out au­tho­riza­tion.

The trucks were traced to a Cen­tral garage in Mon­trose Ch­agua­nas in 2017 by of­fi­cers of the TTDF where on­ly the chas­sis of these ve­hi­cles were found. There was nev­er any ac­tion tak­en against of­fi­cers pos­si­bly in­volved in this il­lic­it op­er­a­tion.

All the Ca­roni ve­hi­cles that were in the pos­ses­sion of the TTDF- had nev­er been trans­ferred ac­cord­ing to the cer­ti­fied copies re­ceived by Guardian Me­dia.

While the TTDF in­di­cat­ed in its me­dia re­lease it re­mains a pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion- it still failed to ad­dress the is­sues sur­round­ing the miss­ing trucks that formed part of Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion.