Chief Sec: No regrets about exposing 'whistleblower'

TOBAGO House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Farley Augustine says he has no regrets about revealing the identity of a man who claimed that he and other senior government and police officials were part of a conspiracy to destabilise the current THA administration.

During a special sitting of the THA on July 19, played exerpts of recorded conversations between himself and a man he identified as Akil Abdullah. Augustine, at the time, described Abdullah as a "whistleblower."

In the recordings, Abdullah claimed he had been offered over $270,000 in a meeting with the Prime Minister and others as part of a plot to "bring down" the current THA administration.

Earlier this week, a newspaper story reported allegations of attempts being made on Abdullah’s life. This has not yet been confirmed.

Augustine spoke to reporters on Thursday after addressing a simple function to mark the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the THA and Habitat for Humanity at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex.

It came hours after the Prime Minister addressed the controversy and other Tobago-related matters during a television interview.

Augustine said, “The truth is in revealing the whistleblower, the whistleblower also received some protection. If anything should happen to the whistleblower we now know who has the motive to do him harm.”

He continued, “If the whistleblower’s identity remained a mystery, then those who are guilty of what he alleges will be in a position that they can do him harm without anyone knowing.

"Now that we know who the whistleblower is and now that we know the full length of parts of his allegation, then we know who will have the motive to do him harm.”

Augustine claimed he had not seen the PM’s interview. However, when told that Dr Rowley had issued a pre-action protocol letter to Abdullah, Augustine said anyone can issue such a letter.

But he added Section 70 of the THA Act lists clearly the privileges of the House.

“It also indicates that anything shared there, even if it’s at a committee of the House, receives protection. So I am not sure how far he will get with that.”

Augustine claimed it was Dr Rowley who said that the whistleblower was a state witness.

“I asked if he was and the Prime Minister confirmed, not the police.”

Augustine wondered if the pre-action protocol letter was an “attempt to scare the whistleblower" or an attempt at “witness tampering using a legal mechanism."

He said, “I don’t know, but the jury will be out on that.”

Augustine also responded to Rowley’s accusation, at last Thursday’s post Cabinet news conference, that his statements in the House were tantamount to witness tampering.

“It can’t be witness tampering if I don’t know the person is a witness. Someone came to me and said they have this information and I said, ‘Is this true? Is this false?’ Wait till a few days until I start seeing the warrants and production orders and realise there were too intersections, one of which said there is an inspector (name called) who is managing this case.”

He added, “I heard that from him (Abdullah) first. That turned out to be true, based on the warrant that came after he met with me. And then he said this was no government meeting where the statement (in the audio clip) was made. This was a meeting from the national executive committee of the PDP (Progressive Democratic Patriots)."

Augustine was referring to statements made in an audio clip widely circulated on social media in May. In the recording, people can be heard discussing the use of THA resources to fund a political propaganda campaign.

The audio-clip has since prompted investigations by the police and the Integrity Commission. Two weeks ago, the police raided the homes of Augustine and other past and current high-ranking THA officials as part of its investigation.

On Thursday, Augustine continued, “When I saw the (police) production order that, too, turned out to be true.

"So clearly, at that stage, I felt that the whistleblower gave some elements of truth that warranted me taking action that would protect both the whistleblower, myself and also protect the state agency that is the TTPS (Trinidad and Tobago Police Service) in so doing.”

Augustine argued that one could not tamper with a witness if they did not know the individual was one.

“He came to me and offered this information.”

He also reiterated his call for independent investigation into the bribery allegations, saying he is willing to turn over the transcripts of his conversation to the team so that an assessment could be done.

Augustine said his lawyers wrote to the Commissioner of Police twice – on July 20 and 26 – requesting an independent enquiry. They also wrote to the Police Complaints Authority and Integrity Commission.

“This trumped-up illegality triggered all of this action. The police did not require anyone to come for them to persecute people politically but they did it nonetheless. I am not asking the police to persecute anybody politically. I am saying these matters are out there.

“I laid it out there so that so that the TTPS must now be accountable for independently having this matter investigated, so the whistleblower is protected and that we get to the bottom of these allegations of bribery.”

Told that Rowley, in the television interview, had described him as arrogant, Augustine replied, “Those words that are being used to describe me, are words that have been used to describe the Prime Minister himself so I don’t know that it’s something I will bat an eye over.

“For me, the principle remains the same and it is the same principle that the Prime Minister had when he went to the Parliament with E-mailgate. Someone brought information to him then. Someone brought information to me now.”

Augustine said it did not matter if his presentation to the House, last week, came by way of a statement or motion.

“The House allows for both to happen.”