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Saturday, May 17, 2025

Rowley to give SSA update soon

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
337 days ago
20240614
FILE: A police officer waits in an unmarked vehicle outside Knowsley Building, Queens Park West, Port-of-Spain where the SSA was based.

FILE: A police officer waits in an unmarked vehicle outside Knowsley Building, Queens Park West, Port-of-Spain where the SSA was based.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day gave the com­mit­ment he will ad­dress what hap­pened with the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) at a par­lia­men­tary sit­ting be­fore the end of this month.

As chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Row­ley said it was al­ways his in­ten­tion to speak to the Par­lia­ment about what tran­spired with the SSA.

How­ev­er, dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, he ex­plained that Par­lia­ment goes to re­cess on Ju­ly 5 and there may be no sit­tings in Ju­ly. As a re­sult, he said he will try to dis­cuss the top­ic be­fore the House goes on re­cess.

In March, news that SSA head, Ma­jor Roger Best was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with im­me­di­ate ef­fect shocked the pub­lic, and the agency found it­self un­der an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

T&T’s am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer was ap­point­ed as SSA act­ing di­rec­tor and be­gan an in­ter­nal au­dit of the agency.

In May, charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice were laid against sev­er­al for­mer SSA mem­bers, in­clud­ing a pas­tor and self-pro­claimed spy Ian Brown.

To date, 12 peo­ple once as­signed to the SSA, in­clud­ing Best, have been fired as the au­dit con­tin­ues.

Apart from the al­leged il­le­gal trans­fer­ring of state-is­sued arms and am­mu­ni­tion, po­lice are al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing mur­ders sup­pos­ed­ly linked to SSA em­ploy­ees.


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