The fight against crime is on the back foot, because the National Security Ministry is using the wrong assessment tools in the Police Service. And all elected Members of Parliament should be allotted portions of the national budget to spend in their respective constituencies, says UNC Senator Sharon-Ann Gopaul-McNicol. “That is what independence should have brought for us,” she said in her budget debate contribution.

“It is time we decolonise ourselves. The money belongs to the 1.3 million people, not the politicians,” said the psychologist and social scientist who left Congress of the People to be appointed a UNC Senator. Labelling the PNM a “top-down” administration, she said the last government that did something constructive for the poor was the UNC. The PNM was piling up huge debts for the next generation to pay, when all the Government had to do to make the people happy was concentrate on alleviating the plight of the poor.

She stressed that the crime fight would be lost because the National Security Ministry was using the wrong tools; social reform was the answer, not Cameron Ross’ recommendations, Gopaul-McNicol asserted. The psychometric tests used on police officers were tailored for foreigners, and would not work in this culture. “Your assessment tools are wrong. That is why we are seeing no progress in crime,” she told National Security Minister Martin Joseph.