(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has admitted the People’s Partnership Government made a mistake in appointing Reshmi Usha Ramnarine to head the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).
This is the first time Persad-Bissessar has admitted publicly the appointment of 31-year-old Ramnarine (which took effect on January 14) as director of the Security Intelligence Agency (SIA) was a mistake since the Express exclusively broke the story on January 21.
Ramnarine handed in her resignation 24 hours after questions regarding her qualifications for the job were raised in the Express. Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley had also threatened to withhold Opposition support for critical legislation unless she was removed from the position.
In the days that followed, it would be revealed Ramnarine was not qualified for the post, and Rowley threatened to take National Security Minister Brigadier John Sandy (who said in Parliament she was a University of the West Indies graduate) to the Privileges Committee for misleading the Parliament on the matter.
Sandy apologised and avoided facing the Privileges Committee, but Persad-Bissessar did not clear the air on the issue, saying the country needed to move on.
However, on Monday night while speaking with the media following Vision on Mission’s second annual awards ceremony at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, the PM said:
“We had a National Security Council meeting; a couple hours of meetings where issues with, of course, anti-crime initiatives, something to do with the Caribbean Financial Task Force and, of course, looking forward to taking the process forward to find an acting interim director for the Strategic Security [sic] Agency.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure that the misstep that was made doesn’t happen again.”
When asked if Government would consider getting parliamentary approval for the next appointment, Persad-Bissessar said they could not wait that long to consider having Parliament’s approval.
“I do not think we can afford to wait another year to put those special constitutional arrangements in place at this point in time,” she said.
She said Government is going to spend time on finding the right person for the job and took the decision “that we will have an interim person which will allow for a longer period of time in which to source the best person for the job”.
Persad-Bissessar also admitted her Government needs to improve and said she does not blame the media for publishing the story.
“I don’t blame the media; the media does their job. I hold no hostility towards anyone in the media. They got a story and they ran with their story, so I say there is always room for improvement. On the part of Government, there is always room for improvement, and we will continue to try to improve at what we do.”
Persad-Bissessar said Government would have to do research to see what happens in other parts of the world when appointing other security heads.
“We do have it in the Police Service and, indeed, those were recommendations that came from us when we had the talks with the then prime minister (Patrick Manning), the constitutional arrangements dealing with the Police Service commissioner, the deputies and so on, but those are matters for much further discussions,” she said.
