Cab­i­net has es­tab­lished an in­ves­tiga­tive team to ex­am­ine the al­leged dis­ap­pear­ance of over 25,000 rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment’s (TTR) Cu­mu­to Bar­racks ac­cord­ing to a state­ment by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The min­istry said yes­ter­day, the team will con­duct a full au­dit of records, the ar­moury, and stor­age fa­cil­i­ties at the bar­racks. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, two mil­i­tary of­fi­cers from Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) coun­tries will join the team, one serv­ing as co-chair. These of­fi­cers will come from the Guyana De­fence Force and the Ja­maica De­fence Force. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will pro­vide a Sec­re­tari­at, which in­cludes one se­nior coun­sel and one ju­nior coun­sel.

The re­gion­al ad­di­tions come as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is in Bar­ba­dos meet­ing with re­gion­al lead­ers at the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the in­clu­sion of Cari­com team mem­bers came from a di­rect agree­ment with Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness of Ja­maica and Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali of Guyana.

The ap­point­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors are:

Colonel (Re­tired) Lyle Alexan­der (Co-Chair­man), who is al­so Com­mis­sion­er and Chair­man of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go

Welling­ton Vir­gil - Re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice

Mar­tin Mur­rain - Re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice

Colonel (Re­tired) Michael Clarke

War­rant Of­fi­cer (Re­tired) Wayne Ngui

The rounds were dis­cov­ered miss­ing from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment’s Cu­mu­to Bar­racks dur­ing a re­cent au­dit. The am­mu­ni­tion had been moved from an un­der­ground bunker to an­oth­er build­ing in 2022 due to wa­ter dam­age, but the dis­ap­pear­ance went un­no­ticed un­til ear­li­er this year. 

NTA Po­lit­i­cal Leader Gary Grif­fith, ear­li­er this week, called for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds to ur­gent­ly ad­dress the miss­ing TTDF am­mu­ni­tion de­mand­ing he en­gage with the TTDF to ver­i­fy the claims and bring in an ex­ter­nal au­dit team to de­ter­mine whether the rounds were used for train­ing, trans­ferred, or stolen. Grif­fith warned that the lack of clar­i­ty could ei­ther un­just­ly em­bar­rass the De­fence Force or ex­pose a se­ri­ous se­cu­ri­ty breach. 

Over the last cou­ple of years, sev­er­al spent shell cas­ings with the mark­ings of TTR have been re­cov­ered at the scenes of shoot­ings and mur­ders through­out the coun­try.

Dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ing on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in March 2023, Chief of De­fence Staff Air Vice Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel and TTDF In­spec­tor Gen­er­al Shel­don Ram­nanan said that all arms and am­mu­ni­tion were ac­count­ed for dur­ing an au­dit con­duct­ed back then.