Mark Bas­sant

De­spite the dis­ap­pear­ance of $375,000 from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) se­nior rates mess ac­count re­vealed in a Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML) in­ves­ti­ga­tion last week, there will still be a Christ­mas din­ner for its mem­bers to be held at Es­tate 101 on De­cem­ber 21.

Se­nior sources in­side the Coast Guard told Guardian Me­dia that the par­ty “has been down­scaled to a cock­tail par­ty due to lim­it­ed funds that would have been on­ly gath­ered from se­nior rates mem­bers be­tween Sep­tem­ber and De­cem­ber this year.

Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed, dur­ing a three-week in­ves­ti­ga­tion, found out about the pos­si­ble mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds that al­leged­ly oc­curred over the last year in which the $375,000 went miss­ing from the se­nior mess rates ac­count at Re­pub­lic Bank in West Mall.

A se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer is now the sub­ject of an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion as well as a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the miss­ing mon­ey.

Sources say that a few days af­ter the Guardian Me­dia in­ves­tiga­tive sto­ry, the in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan and is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed soon.

The 370 mid-lev­el of­fi­cers con­tribute $200 month­ly to the mess ac­count. Of that, $150 is their con­tri­bu­tion to the an­nu­al Christ­mas din­ner while the oth­er $50 goes to­wards the mess up­keep.

In 2018, there were changes in the ex­ec­u­tive of the se­nior mess rates, but the of­fi­cial han­dover to the new ex­ec­u­tive sig­na­to­ries was on­ly done in Au­gust this year.

Days lat­er an au­dit be­gan and was con­duct­ed by Fleet Chief Pet­ty Of­fi­cer Bai­ley, al­so of the Act­ing Com­mand Fleet, where fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and pos­si­ble mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds were dis­cov­ered.

The find­ings of the au­dit were lat­er for­ward­ed to the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the TTCG, Cap­tain Archer.

The Coast Guard lat­er con­firmed an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dis­ap­pear­ance of the mon­ey.

The se­nior en­list­ed of­fi­cer un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion ad­mit­ted to his col­leagues in a what­sApp chat in late Sep­tem­ber that he had with­drawn the mon­ey from the ac­count and placed it in a friend­ly so­ci­ety with­out get­ting the prop­er per­mis­sion to do so.