Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley has ap­point­ed For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses Min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, as­sist­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon.The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) an­nounced that de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day.

The OPM stat­ed Moses would op­er­ate with Dil­lon in ad­di­tion to his (Moses') re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.The Prime Min­is­ter man­dat­ed that Moses would as­sist Dil­lon "in the per­for­mance of such du­ties as the min­is­ter (Dil­lon) may spec­i­fy from time-to-time."

Row­ley's move to give the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter some "as­sis­tance" comes in the wake of ris­ing crime and tougher mea­sures by Gov­ern­ment af­ter the mur­der last week of two school­boys from Suc­cess/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School.

Denel­son Smith and Mark Richards were pulled out of a taxi and shot dead while go­ing home af­ter school.

With­in 24 hours Row­ley in­stalled an army pres­ence in Laven­tille and oth­er crime "hot spot" ar­eas around T&T. A hand­ful of mur­ders last week­end, how­ev­er, fol­lowed the PM's move. Since then none had been not­ed un­til an­oth­er mur­der was re­port­ed yes­ter­day in east Trinidad.

In the in­ter­im, Gov­ern­ment has been mov­ing to beef up its se­cu­ri­ty frame­work.The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil was due to meet Tues­day, the same day Row­ley vis­it­ed the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre. He re­ceived a pre­sen­ta­tion from Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency head Col George Robin­son and toured the fa­cil­i­ty.

The PM was ac­com­pa­nied on that vis­it by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs min­is­ters Faris Al-Rawi and Stu­art Young, Dil­lon and Moses.Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the ap­point­ment of Moses would con­sol­i­date the Gov­ern­ment's on­slaught on the crime sit­u­a­tion. Nei­ther Dil­lon or Moses were avail­able for com­ment.

Moses, who has a BSC in agri­cul­ture, MSC in agron­o­my, al­so has a post grad­u­ate diplo­ma in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs. He served as rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Amer­i­can States Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at in Guyana and in Bar­ba­dos as the deputy rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co-op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA) and in oth­er ca­pac­i­ties in oth­er coun­tries for six years.

He joined CAB In­ter­na­tion­al's UK head­quar­ters and was al­so the re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive of CAB In­ter­na­tion­al.

Op­po­si­tion Whip Gan­ga Singh, how­ev­er, ques­tioned the ap­point­ment, say­ing: "The Prime Min­is­ter's move to ap­point the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter has, for one, demon­strat­ed a lack of con­fi­dence in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter. It's al­so baf­fling, since how could the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs be in­volved in lo­cal af­fairs."