Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has dou­bled down on his po­si­tion that de­tails of the State’s an­ti-crime strate­gies will not be made pub­lic.

His de­c­la­ra­tion to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, came near­ly a month af­ter first an­nounc­ing that Gov­ern­ment will no longer re­veal its crime-fight­ing plans. Alexan­der re­it­er­at­ed that trans­paren­cy in this re­gard could in­ad­ver­tent­ly give crim­i­nal syn­di­cates the up­per hand.

“I am not pre­pared to give to per­sons in­for­ma­tion about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or in­tel­li­gence that could ben­e­fit the crim­i­nal syn­di­cate or the or­gan­ised crime teams in and out of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am not pre­pared to do that,” Alexan­der said when quizzed on what plans Gov­ern­ment had to deal with the on­go­ing crime scourge.

The min­is­ter not­ed that while the pub­lic has a right to be in­formed about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts, op­er­a­tional se­cre­cy is nec­es­sary in a cli­mate where or­gan­ised crime con­tin­ues to adapt quick­ly to State in­ter­ven­tions.

Alexan­der’s stance had pre­vi­ous­ly drawn mixed re­ac­tions. Some groups have ex­pressed con­cern over re­duced trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, while oth­ers have wel­comed the move as a prac­ti­cal mea­sure in the fight against crime.

Yes­ter­day, Alexan­der as­sured that Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to re­port­ing on re­sults and out­comes, but in­sist­ed that spe­cif­ic strate­gies and planned op­er­a­tions will re­main off the pub­lic record.

“There con­tin­ues to be talks about the mil­i­tary pa­rade and what is best for our coun­try but watch at what is hap­pen­ing on our seas sur­round­ing us. Do you think we will be will­ing to put our cit­i­zens at risk?

Alexan­der main­tained Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to crime fight­ing and not­ed that mea­sures be­yond leg­is­la­tion con­tin­ued to be ex­plored.