Panday says PP gov't handling of illegal spy matter undermines confidence

Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday has told the Trinidad Guardian the People's Partnership handling of the illegal wiretapping issue was wrong, adding that the way it was done will undermine confidence in Trinidad and Tobago's security agencies.

Panday spoke by telephone from the UK where he is undergoing medical tests, the paper reported.

“Every country must have security services and confidence in those services is very important. To have raised the issue in the way they did would have destroyed all confidence in every single investigative unit in T&T," the paper quoted Panday as saying.

“It was clearly wrong. If something was amiss, it ought to have been dealt with without the publicity taking place...One must understand that to undermine these agencies publicly, one has got to be wrong politically,” Panday said and suggested that raising the matter publicly could be interpreted as a distraction.

The Guardian said Panday also expressed his views on whether former Prime Minister Patrick Manning used security agencies to spy on people. “I don’t know the evidence of that. The situation raises all kinds of questions...what prevents the present Government from doing that also?

“It was better for the matter to have been dealt with privately and if anyone committed an offence, to be charged — that would have been the responsible way to handle this.

“But whatever had to be done, should have ensured it was done in a way that the nation and all other quarters could have confidence in the security services but that confidence has broken badly now," Panday said.

Panday's name was not on the list of politicians named last Friday by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar when she announced details of illegal wiretapping.

The PNM has claimed that Panday used the same tactics when he was in government.

As far back as 1997 Keith Rowley, who was an opposition MP at the time, had accused the Panday administration of using privileged information obtained in Panday's capacity as chairman of the National Security Council regarding alleged PNM internal problems.

Panday's National Security Minister Joseph Theodore had defended the operations of security agencies stating that they have a mandate "to collect information which comes from various sources, external, internal, and is done in a covert manner and by overt means."