Gail Alexan­der

A watch list of gang mem­bers who re­ceive con­tracts from any arm of the State has been pre­pared and such in­di­vid­u­als will be "black­list­ed" if they fail to give up a life of crime, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith said yes­ter­day, af­ter rev­e­la­tions that a gang mem­ber has been giv­en a con­tract to re­pair a po­lice sta­tion.

Grif­fith spoke af­ter Cab­i­net yes­ter­day, af­ter the ac­cu­sa­tion was first made by PNM Sen­ate leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to Wednes­day night's con­clu­sion of the 2014 bud­get de­bate.T&T Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­di­cat­ed that the work is be­ing done on a Port-of-Spain po­lice sta­tion and has been go­ing on for sev­er­al months.

The gang mem­ber al­leged to be head­ing the work is known to be "in charge" of cer­tain el­e­ments in the area, re­li­able sources said. They added that the sit­u­a­tion has raised con­cerns among some po­lice of­fi­cers.Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal, who is the line min­is­ter for the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Ude­cott), con­firmed yes­ter­day that Ude­cott pre­sides over the build­ing of po­lice sta­tions, but is not in­volved in the process of sourc­ing con­trac­tors to re­pair them.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Don­na Cox and for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works Nile­ung Hy­po­lite both said yes­ter­day that since the po­lice now have their own bud­get, the nor­mal process for re­pairs on po­lice sta­tions and sim­i­lar tasks in­volves the po­lice com­mis­sion­er's of­fice iden­ti­fy­ing the job to be done.

They said a ten­der­ing com­mit­tee with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice will usu­al­ly is­sue at least three ten­der doc­u­ments for at least three ten­ders. The com­mit­tee will then take the cheap­est but most re­li­able one, Cox and Hy­po­lite both said.Beck­les, who spoke about the po­lice sta­tion con­tract in her bud­get con­tri­bu­tion, was com­ment­ing on ear­li­er de­c­la­ra­tions by Grif­fith, who had said no gov­ern­ment con­tracts would be is­sued to gang mem­bers.

Beck­les said she was "pret­ty im­pressed" with Grif­fith's salvos, adding she some­times got in trou­ble for say­ing these things. She said she hoped Grif­fith would fol­low through with his state­ments.She al­so cau­tioned him, "You should al­so be care­ful of those who say you're do­ing great and not to wor­ry, those who are blow­ing your trum­pet."

On Grif­fith's state­ments that gang­sters would not get gov­ern­ment con­tracts, Beck­les urged cau­tion, not­ing the po­lice re­cent­ly had a meet­ing with gang mem­bers to try and bro­ker peace.She al­so said gang mem­bers get con­tracts for work, adding, "As we speak, one gang mem­ber has a con­tract to re­pair a po­lice sta­tion.""You se­ri­ous?" said PNM sen­a­tors.Beck­les said she won­dered if Grif­fith would probe that con­tract and end it now that he was min­is­ter.

But she said Grif­fith had to be care­ful in speak­ing with­out facts, and gang mem­bers al­so had fam­i­lies to feed."You have to be care­ful with the speed with which you take de­ci­sions al­so," she warned."You're not deal­ing with ten­der­ing of con­tracts, so when you say they won't get con­tracts, you don't have the au­thor­i­ty to deal with ten­ders and the like. Be care­ful what peo­ple are telling you, as it's not that sim­ple."

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Beck­les said: "This is a very sen­si­tive mat­ter and hav­ing re­gard to Mr Grif­fith's in­tent, which is laud­able, I'm ask­ing him to probe this mat­ter of a po­lice sta­tion be­ing re­paired via con­tract to a gang mem­ber. I've done so sim­ply be­cause he in­di­cat­ed that is an ap­proach he will take as a method of deal­ing with crime."Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams said he hadn't yet heard Beck­les' state­ment and would wait to see re­ports on it.

Grif­fith con­firms con­tract

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian af­ter Cab­i­net yes­ter­day, Grif­fith–who de­clined to iden­ti­fy the po­lice sta­tion un­der re­pairs–said there are in­deed gang mem­bers who have state agency con­tracts."I don't even have to in­ves­ti­gate...I know for a fact that is so," he said."And they would be us­ing these same con­tracts to get prof­its and use that same prof­it to ac­quire more guns to at­tack the same po­lice who we're ask­ing to pro­tect and serve."

Say­ing he in­tends to plug that artery, Grif­fith said: "If they in­tend to con­tin­ue that life of crime and use their prof­its from con­tracts for this, we'll have to pull the plug on that."There is a watch list and I in­tend to change this to black­list such per­sons. This isn't a witch-hunt. If peo­ple move away from a life of crime and we have no ev­i­dence on them, that's dif­fer­ent.

"But if they want con­tin­ue to pur­sue their ac­tiv­i­ties and use prof­its from gov­ern­ment con­tracts to pur­chase more weapons and be in­volved in drugs and hire gang mem­bers to com­mit may­hem, I'll pull the plug on that," he said.

"So we have peo­ple on a watch list and I in­tend to have them black­list­ed. If we're aware that or­gan­ised crime has an av­enue to ac­quire funds to con­tin­ue their trade, my job is to cut that artery and dis­man­tle these gangs...we'll be in­di­rect­ly aid­ing and abet­ting crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in pro­vid­ing them with as­sets and fi­nances to get con­tracts if this con­tin­ues.

"I'm not in­to the Robin Hood type of lifestyle, where peo­ple say they're do­ing this to aid the com­mu­ni­ties, as they're not. What they're do­ing is us­ing these prof­its to hire gang mem­bers and pur­chase guns and drugs and it's caus­ing chaos in the com­mu­ni­ty."If they want to use it in a dif­fer­ent pos­i­tive way, drop their weapons and move for­ward with their life, I don't have a prob­lem with that, but if they in­tend to con­tin­ue–no."

PNM's Cox, who said gang mem­bers are al­so be­ing hired in the Com­mu­ni­ty En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) and by gov­ern­ment min­istries, called on Grif­fith to "talk to your col­leagues first if you're se­ri­ous about fight­ing crime."

Works Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, whose min­istry han­dles seg­ments of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) project, said in the URP, com­pa­nies bid for con­tracts. Asked if there were screen­ing pro­ce­dures to pre­vent in­fil­tra­tion by un­de­sir­able el­e­ments, he said if peo­ple ap­plied for work, it had to be con­sid­ered.

Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) MP Anil Roberts said when peo­ple came to con­stituen­cy of­fices seek­ing as­sis­tance, "no­body walks with a stamp on their fore­head that they're a gang mem­ber. As MPs we're here to help those who seek help with­in our means."Asked if he would sup­port Grif­fith's crack­down on gang mem­bers, Roberts said: "I sup­port his ef­forts. He's try­ing to make T&T bet­ter so what­ev­er help I can give, I will."

He said the PP had pro­posed the Con­stituen­cy De­vel­op­ment Fund, al­low­ing MPs' di­vi­sions $10 mil­lion each to as­sist con­stituen­cies, "but the PNM doesn't sup­port it..."