Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed in­to a leaked au­dio record­ing, pur­port­ed­ly fea­tur­ing two To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) of­fi­cials dis­cussing hir­ing per­sons full-time un­der the THA to spread pro­pa­gan­da on­line on be­half of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.

How­ev­er, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Curt Si­mon says of­fi­cers have not yet start­ed in­ter­view­ing pos­si­ble wit­ness­es in the mat­ter.

DCP Si­mon’s re­sponse came on the heels of con­fir­ma­tion from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion that a pre­lim­i­nary probe in­to whether pos­si­ble cor­rup­tion may have been in­volved had com­menced based on a com­plaint from a pri­vate cit­i­zen.

The one-minute-and-15-sec­ond voice record­ing has made its rounds on so­cial me­dia since May 23. The short clip sug­gest­ed a plot by two ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the THA to use the As­sem­bly’s funds to hire peo­ple to spread pro­pa­gan­da on be­half of the new TPP.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, DCP Si­mon dis­closed that a lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor was ap­point­ed on Wednes­day to spear­head the mat­ter.

“The TTPS has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the is­sues sur­round­ing these ut­ter­ances that are go­ing around on so­cial me­dia. ACP Wen­dell Lu­cas, who is in charge of the White-Col­lar Crime Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, he is head­ing up a team to see about that in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” he said.

How­ev­er, the se­nior of­fi­cer de­clined to re­veal which po­ten­tial crim­i­nal of­fences were be­ing con­sid­ered dur­ing the course of the probe, as he said it was pos­si­ble that is­sues not yet in the pub­lic do­main could be un­earthed.

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion al­so con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that they are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the con­tentious record­ing. A pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment that was launched on June 5 is re­port­ed­ly ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by to­day.

An anony­mous com­plaint was re­port­ed­ly lodged with the Com­mis­sion on June 3, un­der Sec­tion 32 of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act. Un­der this sec­tion, the com­mis­sion must in­ves­ti­gate any com­plaint made by the pub­lic in­to any al­leged breach­es of the act or al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. Fol­low­ing the ini­tial as­sess­ment, the com­mis­sion will de­ter­mine if a full-scale probe is war­rant­ed

On Wednes­day, THA Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said he re­ceived a let­ter which sug­gest­ed that a To­ba­go pen­sion­er had filed the com­plaint.

Mean­while, speak­ing at a town hall meet­ing at the Fair­field Com­plex in Ba­co­let, Scar­bor­ough, on Tues­day, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine nei­ther con­firmed nor de­nied the le­git­i­ma­cy of the record­ing. How­ev­er, he said he had noth­ing to fear and would ad­dress the mat­ter on his own time.

On May 25, the THA Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer re­ject­ed a re­quest by Mor­ris to raise a mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence against the ex­ec­u­tive of the As­sem­bly, af­ter calls from some quar­ters for Au­gus­tine’s res­ig­na­tion in the wake of the leak­ing of the au­dio clip.