Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young has con­firmed he has re­ports be­fore him of peo­ple al­leged­ly en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty who have been giv­en state con­tracts and in­tends to act on it.

Young made the com­ment at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the min­istry’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, as he re­spond­ed to a ques­tions over a Guardian Me­dia re­port that a top-se­cret Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty doc­u­ment had iden­ti­fied sev­er­al of the men ar­rest­ed dur­ing last week’s an­ti-gang sweep, who are sus­pect­ed gang lead­ers, as hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed from lu­cra­tive gov­ern­ment con­tracts.

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle, the doc­u­ment traced the men’s af­fil­i­a­tions to com­pa­nies which re­ceived mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar State con­tracts over the past 14 years. The 17-page re­port was com­piled by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Gary Grif­fith back in 2014 when he served as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Young ad­mit­ted that he first heard of the 2014 re­port via the news­pa­per ar­ti­cle and had since asked for the re­port.

“One of the things I’ve asked for is to be pro­vid­ed with those re­ports with re­spect to any ac­cu­sa­tions and al­le­ga­tions on per­sons who are al­leged­ly en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to be pro­vid­ed to me, for me to see and iden­ti­fy where are the par­tic­u­lar ar­eas,” Young said.

“Those re­ports have been now pro­vid­ed to me and I’m in the process of go­ing through it and in­tend to ac­tion on it.”

In the ar­ti­cle, for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he was not sure there was a re­port on the is­sue but said he knew back then that Grif­fith had a “deep con­cern with an al­leged link be­tween state con­tracts and crim­i­nal el­e­ments ben­e­fit­ing from same.” Mooni­lal did add that Grif­fith raised the mat­ter with him and claimed they both were then col­lab­o­rat­ing to deal with the mat­ter with­in the con­fines of the law.

How­ev­er, Young said he did con­tact Grif­fith on it and was told that at the time it was tabled by him (Grif­fith) and tak­en be­fore the Cab­i­net but was met with great re­sis­tance.

“It is quite hyp­o­crit­i­cal that Dr Mooni­lal, who would have been part of Cab­i­net as a se­nior mem­ber of the then gov­ern­ment, to sit on that re­port 2014 and him now try­ing to cov­er his tracks and say that they had in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions that they try­ing to do some­thing. The facts speak for them­selves and it is that down to the very last minute that the UNC gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to en­cour­age that type of crim­i­nal­i­ty through the var­i­ous pro­grammes that they had and the var­i­ous con­tracts that they con­tin­ued to give out to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments,” Young said.

Yes­ter­day, mean­while, Mooni­lal said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley must now take res­olute ac­tion against the min­is­ters un­der whose watch con­tracts were is­sued to gang­sters.

“He must al­so en­sure that all such con­tracts are re­voked as soon as it is legal­ly pos­si­ble to do so. Dr Row­ley must act swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly in these mat­ters, oth­er­wise he would be as guilty as for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who le­git­imised gang lead­ers through an of­fi­cial meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 16, 2006,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that Row­ley “must shun his nat­ur­al and sense­less ten­den­cy to blame the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment and in­stead move with alacrity to stem the blood­let­ting that has made Trinidad and To­ba­go one of the most vi­o­lent coun­tries in the world.”

“De­spite his well-worn track record of fail­ure, Dr Row­ley must now as­sist law en­force­ment agen­cies by act­ing on the sig­nif­i­cant find­ings in the two high­ly in­struc­tive re­ports,” Mooni­lal said.