Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert Ger­ard Pinard be­lieves that based on how sev­er­al em­ploy­ees of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) were fired, they may be with­in their rights to legal­ly chal­lenge the State. Pinard’s com­ment to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day came amid re­ports that for­mer work­ers of the Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Team of the SSA held talks with the SSA’s le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives on pos­si­bly re­turn­ing to the agency in a dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ty. 

“Their dis­missal, if it was one, may have been un­law­ful in the first place. Maybe that is the rea­son why the Gov­ern­ment is re­lent­ing on the ac­tion now be­cause they will face lit­i­ga­tion for un­law­ful dis­missal,” he said. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the fired work­ers were prepar­ing to sue the State over their dis­missal. On Mon­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds not­ed that no for­mer em­ploy­ee had been re­hired by the SSA and that in­ves­ti­ga­tions were on­go­ing. 

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked if, as a re­sult of the threat of lit­i­ga­tion from the ter­mi­nat­ed em­ploy­ees, the Gov­ern­ment was re­con­sid­er­ing its de­ci­sion. Hinds said, “I just told you that is not true, so I am quite sur­prised to hear you premise that last ques­tion on that, that’s not true.” 

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed that the SSA em­ploy­ees were dis­missed for ei­ther vi­o­lat­ing the SSA Act or ir­reg­u­lar hir­ing and pro­mo­tion prac­tices. 

On Ju­ly 3, in Par­lia­ment, Dr Row­ley read in­to Hansard a state­ment on the con­clu­sion of an au­dit con­duct­ed on the SSA. The au­dit re­vealed that the agency, un­der for­mer di­rec­tor Roger Best, amassed mil­i­tary-grade weapons and am­mu­ni­tion and op­er­at­ed a high­ly trained and mil­i­tarised so-called “Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Unit.”

The au­dit said there were dis­turb­ing prac­tices of nepo­tism and op­por­tunism lead­ing to a con­cen­tra­tion of mem­bers of one church be­ing hired by the SSA, in­stances of dis­hon­esty, and deep de­cep­tion, and the SSA was in­creas­ing­ly in­ca­pable of se­cur­ing pub­lic trust.