An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

One day af­ter Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and re­placed by for­mer US Am­bas­sador to T&T, re­tired brigadier gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, Best de­clined to com­ment on the ad­min­is­tra­tive changes and ad­mit­ted he was in the dark about what had tran­spired.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, the re­tired sol­dier, who was award­ed a three-year con­tract as SSA di­rec­tor in Ju­ly 2019, said, “I am a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al, I have no com­ment.”

De­clar­ing, “God is in con­trol,” Best said he would use the time off to catch up on chores around the house.

Asked ex­act­ly this would en­tail, he re­vealed, “I am go­ing to help do some paint­ing. I think I will paint my son’s room or some­thing like that.

“Lit­tle house­hold chores, things that you know ... you didn’t have time to do when you busy pro­tect­ing the na­tion.”

Best as­sured his time would not be wast­ed.

“I am go­ing to oc­cu­py my­self,” he said.

Asked how long he would be on leave for, Best said, “Maam, I don’t have a clue. I am just as lost as you.

“But I can tell you God is still in con­trol.”

Ac­cord­ing to his Linkedin pro­file, Best was ap­point­ed deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­al at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing Acad­e­my (NS­TA) in Jan­u­ary 2016; pri­or to which he held the post of deputy di­rec­tor at the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) from Sep­tem­ber 2014 to Jan­u­ary 2016.

Mean­while, SSA sources said staff re­port­ed for du­ty as nor­mal yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, while se­nior SSA of­fi­cials claimed, “it was busi­ness as usu­al” at the coun­try’s main in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing agency, the mood of the staff who turned up was de­scribed as “ap­pre­hen­sive”.

Con­firm­ing there was a flur­ry of ac­tiv­i­ties at the SSA’s Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain of­fice yes­ter­day, one source said, “A whole se­ries of meet­ings have been tak­ing place to­day (yes­ter­day).”

Asked about the hasty and shock­ing changes which re­mained shroud­ed in mys­tery yes­ter­day, a se­nior of­fi­cial said, “I am in the dark as far as that is con­cerned and I am not even go­ing to ask a ques­tion about it.

“I guess when they are ready to share with peo­ple they will, but even if I did know, it would be a breach of my du­ty, my con­tract here to di­vulge any in­for­ma­tion.”

Ad­mit­ting he was, “Just as shocked as every­body else,” he re­ferred to claims that doc­u­ments and hard­ware had been seized, as he ex­plained that if this was in fact done, it would have been done over the week­end and, “Would be at the high­est lev­el.”

Act­ing head car­ry­ing out au­dit

Phillips-Spencer’s re­place­ment of Best was con­firmed via a re­lease post­ed on Face­book by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Sun­day.

The for­mer Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary at the T&T Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton, DC, served for more than 35 years in the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) from March 1981. His last mil­i­tary ap­point­ment was vice chief of de­fence staff.

Fol­low­ing this lat­est ap­point­ment, Phillips-Spencer re­port­ed­ly em­barked on an im­me­di­ate and ex­ten­sive re­view and au­dit of all per­son­nel, equip­ment and process­es with­in the SSA.

As news of a lock­down of all SSA build­ings be­gan spread­ing on Sun­day, se­nior T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) of­fi­cials ex­pressed sur­prise, as they were un­aware of what ex­act­ly had been done and why. These ques­tions re­mained unan­swered yes­ter­day, as se­nior of­fi­cials re­mained tight-lipped.

In an­nounc­ing the shake-up on Sun­day, Row­ley said it fol­lowed a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) rec­om­men­da­tion to Cab­i­net.

Hours be­fore that an­nounce­ment, premis­es oc­cu­pied by the SSA at Knowsley Build­ing, Queen’s Park West; and those at St Vin­cent Street and Sackville Street in Port-of-Spain were placed on lock­down.

A se­nior TTPS of­fi­cial con­firmed he had on­ly been no­ti­fied of the lock­down around 4 am on Sat­ur­day.