Chief Secretary Farley Augustine has denied coercing whistleblower Akil Abdullah into confessing his role in an apparent plot by central government to undermine the THA.

It comes in response to a circulating audio in which Mr. Abdullah says he never met with Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley and that he was pressured to say so.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, however, the Chief Secretary maintained that it was Mr. Abdullah who came to him with the allegations, not the other way around.

“There is irrefutable evidence of the several attempts made by Mr. Abdullah to have a meeting with the Chief Secretary. These requests came via WhatsApp messages, text messages and calls to the Office of the Chief Secretary, making the requests weeks before a meeting was eventually granted. In fact, those requests for meetings started since April 2023 and the Chief Secretary only agreed to a meeting in July 2023,” the statement read.

Mr. Augustine added, “This supposed audio recording currently in circulation, comes subsequent to newspaper articles where Mr Abdullah has said he felt threatened after his statements to the Chief Secretary were revealed in the House of Assembly. Moreover, this back and forth and inconsistencies, forces one to ask the most important question: How is it that the TTPS predicate their case on this witness?
Since the revelations made in the House of Assembly on July 19 and the revelation by the Prime Minister on July 20 that Mr. Abdullah was in fact the State Witness, the Chief Secretary has refused all attempts by Mr. Abdullah and his agents, for meetings or phone conversations. Also, the Chief Secretary has instructed his staff to not respond to any of Mr. Abdullah’s electronic messages or his phone calls.”

The Chief Secretary said it was “deeply concerning” that, to date, no independent inquiry had been launched into Mr. Abdullah’s claims.

“It must then be surmised that this is yet another political attempt to create mischief and distraction to the work of the Tobago House of Assembly,” the Chief Secretary ended.