Denyse Renne

The new lead na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency, the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency (NIA), is nowhere near op­er­a­tional mode, as is be­ing tout­ed by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. In fact, leg­is­la­tion which will see the NIA le­galised is yet to be draft­ed. The start of the NIA's op­er­a­tions has been pushed back on more than one oc­ca­sion and the agency has seen two di­rec­tors come and go even be­fore it was of­fi­cial­ly es­tab­lished.

Months af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice, the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion de­scribed the NIA as an in­tel­li­gence agency which would as­sist in com­bat­ting crime. Now, two years in­to the Gov­ern­ment's term, the agency is yet to re­ceive le­gal stand­ing.

Mean­while, its sis­ter en­ti­ty, the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), has been re­ceiv­ing in­creased fund­ing. In the 2013 bud­get, the SSA re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $107.6 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the Draft Es­ti­mates of Re­cur­rent Ex­pen­di­ture-an in­crease of $77.3 mil­lion over the 2012 al­lo­ca­tion of $30.3 mil­lion.

Cur­rent­ly, the SSA is un­der­go­ing struc­tur­al changes and is head­ed by Bis­nath Ma­haraj, who as­sumed the post in April this year. Ma­haraj, sources say, has a law de­gree from Stafford­shire Uni­ver­si­ty, Eng­land, and was re­cent­ly called to the Bar in T&T. He is ex­pect­ed to com­plete his mas­ter's de­gree in law next March.

Ma­haraj is cur­rent­ly on a one-year con­tract, hav­ing tak­en over from Gary Grif­fith, whose con­tract was not re­newed. With the start of op­er­a­tions at NIA still in abeyance, sources say op­er­a­tions at the SSA re­main strained, since it is un­clear un­der whose port­fo­lio SSA falls.

Sources said for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brig John Sandy and then SSA in­ter­im di­rec­tor Grif­fith were be­ing un­der­mined by a se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial who was not af­fil­i­at­ed with the se­cu­ri­ty min­istry. Sources fur­ther al­lege that SSA deputy di­rec­tor Browne would re­port di­rect­ly to the se­nior of­fi­cial, thus by­pass­ing Grif­fith, and now Ma­haraj.

"This on­go­ing re­la­tion­ship com­plete­ly un­der­mines the au­thor­i­ty of the di­rec­tor of the SSA or the new di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the NIA, as this per­son is un­able to con­trol the flow of in­for­ma­tion that pass­es from Browne to (of­fi­cial's name called). The source said it was "one that crip­ples the de­ci­sion-mak­ing of the di­rec­tor or di­rec­tor gen­er­al, as he is placed in an un­com­fort­able po­si­tion."

The source ex­pressed con­cern that Julie Browne was nom­i­nat­ed by the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial to be part of the steer­ing com­mit­tee, and re­mained on the com­mit­tee af­ter the Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine fi­as­co last year, in which it was re­vealed that Browne wrote to Per­sad-Bisses­sar rec­om­mend­ing Ram­nar­ine for the post of SSA di­rec­tor.

It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that Ram­nar­ine had fal­si­fied her ed­u­ca­tion­al records, and she re­signed from the po­si­tion nine days af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed.

AG mum on SSA in­ter­fer­ence

Con­tact­ed on the mat­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said his min­istry was still in the process of draft­ing leg­is­la­tion for the NIA. "We can on­ly draft leg­is­la­tion when we have the nec­es­sary frame­work in place," Ram­lo­gan said, adding that the mat­ter is a pri­or­i­ty for the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

He said he did not know how long the draft­ing would take. Asked about his re­la­tion­ship with Browne, Ram­lo­gan said she did not re­port to him. Re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent ear­li­er this year in which train­ing for the soft­ware sys­tem known as Verint (an­a­lyt­ic soft­ware and hard­ware for se­cu­ri­ty and sur­veil­lance) was used by trainees and or­dered shut down by him, the AG was asked why he would make such an or­der, since SSA falls un­der the am­bit of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

He was al­so asked why he would au­tho­rise Browne to hand­pick those be­ing trained. His re­sponse was: "Those are all mat­ters which deal with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty af­fairs of the State and there­fore they are not mat­ters that one can prop­er­ly re­spond to, be­cause they will vi­o­late the code of con­duct of the se­cu­ri­ty coun­cil."

The Sun­day Guardian then asked Ram­lo­gan why he nom­i­nat­ed Browne to sit on the steer­ing com­mit­tee. The AG said it was the Prime Min­is­ter who made the ap­point­ments to the com­mit­tee. He was told that in­for­ma­tion re­vealed he was the one who nom­i­nat­ed Browne to the Prime Min­is­ter and it was this nom­i­na­tion which led to Browne's ap­point­ment.

He replied, "Those are high-lev­el ap­point­ments that can't be an­nounced. To go fur­ther in­to de­tails will not hap­pen un­der any ad­min­is­tra­tion, be­cause it is sim­ply not right to make such in­for­ma­tion known. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is a sen­si­tive area in any coun­try and gov­ern­ment."

Giv­en that Browne was the one who re­port­ed­ly nom­i­nat­ed Ram­nar­ine as SSA di­rec­tor, and the back­lash from such a move caused a ma­jor furore and raised ques­tions about the in­tegri­ty of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Ram­lo­gan was asked why Browne was not re­moved from the com­mit­tee.

The AG said, "I don't know where you got that (Browne rec­om­mend­ed Ram­nar­ine)." The AG was then re­mind­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had an­nounced that she act­ed on Browne's rec­om­men­da­tion, to which he said, "Even so, I can­not com­ment on that."

Nev­er­the­less, Ram­lo­gan com­ment­ed that un­like the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, ap­point­ments to Sautt and the SSA un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion were not cloaked in se­cre­cy. "They are more trans­par­ent than ever be­fore. We are very open about what we do," Ram­lo­gan said.

Grif­fith:?Tran­si­tion from SSA to NIA at del­i­cate stage

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day af­ter­noon, se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to the PM Gary Grif­fith said the tran­si­tion from the SSA to NIA was at a "del­i­cate stage." Asked whether the SSA was un­der the purview of the Of­fice of the AG, Grif­fith said no. "It's un­der the um­brel­la of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty," he said.

Grif­fith said the "few good as­pects" of Sautt would be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the NIA.?He dis­missed the sug­ges­tion that NIA is a du­pli­cate of Sautt un­der an­oth­er name.

Next week Part 2

What ex­act­ly are the func­tions of the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency and what does the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee re­port con­tain?

Why the NIA?

The NIA's pre­de­ces­sor, the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA), along with the now de­funct Spe­cial An­ti Crime Unit (Sautt), is be­ing merged with the SSA to form the NIA. The es­tab­lish­ment of the NIA, ac­cord­ing to the re­port, "will be more cost-ef­fec­tive and will be de­signed to ob­tain bet­ter re­sults."

So far, Cab­i­net has agreed that the NIA will be head­ed by a di­rec­tor gen­er­al who will be as­sist­ed by a deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­al and an ap­pro­pri­ate num­ber of di­rec­tors and oth­er sup­port staff.

The NIA, ac­cord­ing to the re­port, is to be es­tab­lished by an act of Par­lia­ment be­fore start­ing full op­er­a­tions, which was sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 1, 2011. How­ev­er, in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate the for­ma­tion of the NIA, Par­lia­ment will need to abol­ish the SSA, and the act that cre­at­ed this agency "should be re­pealed and re­placed by the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency Act," the re­port said.

This is yet to be done, de­spite as­sur­ances that NIA would be op­er­a­tional by Au­gust this year. Last year, a 67-page re­port sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net out­lined how the agency should be struc­tured and func­tion. The re­port was com­mis­sioned by a steer­ing com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter and led by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams.

The com­mit­tee com­prised Prof Daniel Gibran, for­mer di­rec­tor of the SSA Col Al­bert Grif­fith, deputy di­rec­tor of the SSA Julie Browne, and for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Jacqui Wil­son. The com­mit­tee was man­dat­ed in 2010 to come up with a plan to re­struc­ture Sautt.

The re­port and its rec­om­men­da­tions were sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net and cer­tain as­pects were ap­proved. Dur­ing its tenure, the com­mit­tee met with lo­cal law-en­force­ment of­fi­cials and oth­er stake­hold­ers, as well as Unit­ed States Em­bassy of­fi­cials to hear their views and con­sid­er their of­fer of as­sis­tance to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.