Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal says an emer­gency meet­ing of Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must be con­vened to in­ves­ti­gate the 25,753 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion from the T&T Reg­i­ment’s (TTR) re­serves. He added that wit­ness­es must al­so be sum­moned to say when the am­mu­ni­tion was dis­cov­ered miss­ing and who had ac­cess to where it was kept.

“It is on­ly af­ter read­ing an of­fi­cial ‘Spe­cial Or­ders’ mem­o­ran­dum from the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment (TTR) did I be­lieve that this sto­ry on the am­mu­ni­tion was not fake,” Mooni­lal said yes­ter­day in a state­ment.

He was re­spond­ing to a me­dia re­port that the rounds of 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion, which were in re­serve for the TTR, were found to be miss­ing ear­li­er this month dur­ing an ex­am­i­na­tion at the Cu­mu­to Bar­racks.

The dis­cov­ery trig­gered an au­dit of all mu­ni­tions at army fa­cil­i­ties around T&T from last Sat­ur­day by Chief of De­fence Staff Air-Vice Mar­tial Dar­ryl Daniel. A board of en­quiry in­to the miss­ing am­mu­ni­tion is sched­uled for to­day.

Mooni­lal added, “This is an­oth­er patent ex­am­ple of the col­lapse of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty un­der the man­i­fest­ly in­com­pe­tent Fitzger­ald Hinds and the scan­dalous loss of the am­mu­ni­tion is al­so an in­dict­ment on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who heads the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil,” Mooni­lal said.

“The rev­e­la­tion dur­ing a State of Emer­gency makes the is­sue even more trou­bling, es­pe­cial­ly since gang­sters still ap­pear to have no dif­fi­cul­ties in ob­tain­ing am­mu­ni­tion to com­mit vi­o­lent crimes. It’s alarm­ing that am­mu­ni­tion could go miss­ing from a trust­ed na­tion­al law en­force­ment agency. This out­ra­geous de­vel­op­ment adds to the il­lic­it arms and am­mu­ni­tion that are traf­ficked in­to T&T through un­manned ports of en­try.”

He said the mat­ter must be in­ter­ro­gat­ed and the find­ings made pub­lic.

“The mat­ter is as ur­gent and crit­i­cal as the re­cent in­cred­i­ble al­le­ga­tions with re­spect to Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency agents, which were probed by an of­fi­cial com­mit­tee,” he said.

Mooni­lal said while the Reg­i­ment’s com­mand­ing of­fi­cer “be­lat­ed­ly” or­dered a meet­ing for to­day, “an en­quiry by the na­tion’s rel­e­vant par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee is ur­gent­ly re­quired to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­bity.”

“The JSC must be man­dat­ed to thor­ough­ly and pub­licly in­ves­ti­gate the scan­dalous un­ac­count­ed am­mu­ni­tion and to re­port to Par­lia­ment at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble time, with spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions. The com­mit­tee must sum­mon rel­e­vant ex­pert wit­ness­es to un­cov­er when the am­mu­ni­tion was dis­cov­ered miss­ing and who has ac­cess to the bunker. Pe­rus­ing CCTV footage and oth­er dig­i­tal in­tel sources must be ex­am­ined,” he said.

Mooni­lal said the miss­ing am­mu­ni­tion “adds to the many high-pow­ered il­le­gal weapons in the hands of crim­i­nals” and the on­go­ing traf­fick­ing of il­lic­it arms through the coun­try’s un­manned bor­ders.

In a ra­dio in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds con­firmed he had re­quest­ed a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion be con­duct­ed in­to the mat­ter. How­ev­er, he said he on­ly had a pre­lim­i­nary re­port on it and was not in a po­si­tion to re­port to the pub­lic, adding if there is a need for a res­o­lu­tion it would be done as swift­ly as pos­si­ble.