DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

New Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­vin Gon­za­les has made it clear his top pri­or­i­ty will be root­ing out cor­rup­tion with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Gon­za­les re­placed Fitzger­ald Hinds, who served in the po­si­tion since 2021. Hinds faced mount­ing crit­i­cism and re­peat­ed calls for his re­moval amid es­ca­lat­ing crime, which peaked at a record 623 mur­ders in 2024.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of his new role yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said he was both sur­prised and ho­n­oured to be se­lect­ed for the port­fo­lio in Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s reshuf­fled Cab­i­net.

He not­ed that over the past decade, the Gov­ern­ment has passed sev­er­al laws to strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices and equip the courts with leg­isla­tive tools to com­bat crime. How­ev­er, he em­pha­sised that the po­lice must step up and take the lead in en­sur­ing com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty.

“The po­lice ser­vice is our pre­mier law en­force­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion. And there­fore, the po­lice ser­vice must be equipped. Man­agers must be held to ac­count. Every dis­trict po­lice of­fi­cer must be held to ac­count. Every sergeant and every in­spec­tor in the var­i­ous dis­tricts through­out the length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go must be held to ac­count to en­sure that all of our com­mu­ni­ties are safe,” Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les al­so re­mind­ed that gov­ern­ment min­is­ters do not pa­trol the streets. How­ev­er, he be­lieves cor­rup­tion with­in the TTPS is a ma­jor ob­sta­cle in the fight against crime.

“We have to root out cor­rup­tion in the po­lice ser­vice be­cause I be­lieve, frankly, that that is one of the ma­jor im­ped­i­ments in the fight against crime. Wher­ev­er there is cor­rup­tion with­in the po­lice ser­vice, we must up­root it so that the po­lice ser­vice, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of men and women in our po­lice ser­vice, they are right-think­ing cit­i­zens, they abide by the law and there­fore they must be pro­tect­ed from the rogue el­e­ments with­in their ranks so that they can take that fight to the crim­i­nals.”

Gon­za­les re­frained from com­ment­ing on the over­all per­for­mance of the TTPS, but pledged full sup­port to en­sure of­fi­cers suc­ceed in the fight against crime. He al­so stat­ed that any ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE) would be a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion.

The min­is­ter al­so called on the pub­lic to play their part.

“I am now de­pend­ing on every cit­i­zen to join in this ef­fort to take back Trinidad and To­ba­go, to push back against the crim­i­nals and take own­er­ship of this land. They do not be­long to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and they will not be giv­en free rein to take up our spaces and dri­ve fear in our cit­i­zens.”

Asked to com­ment on the sus­pen­sion of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher in an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pro­cure­ment and im­por­ta­tion of two sniper ri­fles for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, Gon­za­les re­frained from giv­ing an opin­ion, cit­ing his re­spect for the le­gal process and the in­de­pen­dence of the TTPS.

Mean­while, asked about gang ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing the Venezue­lan crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion Tren de Aragua, Gon­za­les ac­knowl­edged the grow­ing threat of transna­tion­al crime and the il­le­gal traf­fick­ing of drugs and firearms. He said he is open to ad­vice and be­lieves a re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ap­proach is nec­es­sary.

“I am open to all of the sup­port from the var­i­ous arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, my col­leagues in the re­gion, be­cause you can­not fight this do­mes­ti­cal­ly. You have to un­der­stand that crime al­so has a re­gion­al and an in­ter­na­tion­al di­men­sion, and there­fore you have to work with your col­leagues across the re­gion and across the world in or­der to ad­dress this prob­lem. I in­tend to do so and to forge a close re­la­tion­ship with them and oth­er law en­force­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions as we tack­le this prob­lem here in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Search for miss­ing sea­man

An­oth­er key pri­or­i­ty for Gon­za­les is en­sur­ing that all re­sources are de­ployed to lo­cate the re­mains of Able Sea­man Ke­iron Si­mon, who went miss­ing at sea on Feb­ru­ary 20 dur­ing a multi­na­tion­al drug erad­i­ca­tion op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Grena­da.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will pro­vide all of the re­sources that are avail­able to us at our dis­pos­al to iden­ti­fy the miss­ing ves­sel and to lo­cate the body and to bring some clo­sure to this par­tic­u­lar mat­ter,” Gon­za­les said as he of­fered con­do­lences to Si­mon's fam­i­ly.

Re­ports in­di­cate that Si­mon board­ed a nar­co-sub­ma­rine but rough seas caused it to over­turn, sub­merg­ing and trap­ping him in­side. The ves­sel is be­lieved to be rest­ing on the ocean floor be­tween T&T and Grena­da.

“It is very un­for­tu­nate but we have to iden­ti­fy the re­sources to get to the bot­tom of the mat­ter, and I will al­so make this a top pri­or­i­ty as I en­ter the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Gon­za­les said.

Be­fore tak­ing on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Gon­za­les served as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter. He said he in­tends to work close­ly with his suc­ces­sor, Colm Im­bert, to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity in on­go­ing projects to im­prove wa­ter and util­i­ty ser­vices across the coun­try.

“I do not wish for us to lose that mo­men­tum,” he stat­ed.

Asked to as­sess his per­for­mance in the role, the min­is­ter de­clined to grade him­self, say­ing he would leave that judge­ment to the pub­lic.

Re­gard­ing the TSTT cy­ber­at­tack re­port, which he re­ceived on Jan­u­ary 23, he ad­mit­ted the in­ves­ti­ga­tion took longer than ex­pect­ed. How­ev­er, he not­ed that pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters from in­di­vid­u­als named in the re­port de­layed its re­lease.

“The at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the par­ties who have been ask­ing me to hold my hands, to­geth­er with coun­sel rep­re­sent­ing the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, they have been in con­tact.”

De­spite this, Gon­za­les had planned to lay the re­port in Par­lia­ment once it re­con­vened.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I will not be the min­is­ter that will be lay­ing that re­port, but I hope that the new Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty, will lay this re­port in the Par­lia­ment so that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will un­der­stand.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he promised trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the death of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren on De­cem­ber 16.

“Once I get that re­port, I will have ab­solute­ly no dif­fi­cul­ty what­so­ev­er in mak­ing this re­port pub­lic so that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der­stand what took place in this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent.”

Gon­za­les al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about US bud­get cuts to the Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NOAA) and its po­ten­tial im­pact on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice.

He as­sured the pub­lic that while re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions could be af­fect­ed, the Met Of­fice re­mains suf­fi­cient­ly re­sourced to pro­vide re­li­able weath­er fore­casts.

The new­ly sworn-in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter spoke with his pre­de­ces­sor mo­ments af­ter he re­ceived his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment. Hinds ap­plaud­ed as he was sworn in.

The two are sched­uled to meet lat­er to­day for a tran­si­tion brief­ing. With­in 24 to 48 hours, Gon­za­les al­so plans to hold meet­ings with key se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials.

Asked why he se­lect­ed Gon­za­les to re­place Hinds, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said: “Min­is­ter Gon­za­les is some­one who I gave con­sid­er­a­tion to and chose. Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, in this term from 2020, has al­ways served on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. He has ex­pe­ri­ence in the po­lice ser­vice, an at­tor­ney at law, et cetera. I think at this stage, with where we are right now, Min­is­ter Gon­za­les will take that port­fo­lio.”