Renu­ka Singh

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith said that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will do what they “must” now that they lost the ad­di­tion­al aid of the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies.

When the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced on Tues­day that it had re­tained four pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies-Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty, Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty, In­no­v­a­tive Tech­nolo­gies and Pro­tec­tive Agen­cies Ltd- Grif­fith said that it pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al eyes and ears for the TTPS.

How­ev­er, on Wednes­day Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the one-day-old ini­tia­tive was can­celled.

“We would do what we can and what we must. We were ad­her­ing to our man­date be­fore,” he said.

“This pol­i­cy would have as­sist­ed. It just means that I have to stretch the Area of Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of my Units,” Grif­fith said.

When asked if he agreed with Young’s new stance, Grif­fith said, “it is amaz­ing that the me­dia ex­pects a po­lice com­mis­sion­er to give views or com­ments, agree­ment or dis­agree­ment with pol­i­cy de­ci­sions that are to be made by Gov­ern­ment”.

He al­so said that the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force is al­ready “out sup­port­ing us in joint pa­trols.”

Grif­fith said that he was “in­formed and briefed” about the use of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to bol­ster vis­i­bil­i­ty in res­i­den­tial ar­eas.

“And I made cer­tain rec­om­men­da­tions to en­sure that we could max­imise the val­ue- hav­ing them log in and out of sta­tions etc,” Grif­fith said. (See Page 5)