Gail Alexan­der

A Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Unit in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry will be tasked with se­cur­ing Gov­ern­ment’s Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion thrust from hack­ing and oth­er cy­ber dan­gers.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­vealed this dur­ing Tues­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing.

Young was grilled by Op­po­si­tion MPs on the min­istry spend­ing of the $1.bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty for 2021.

A two -year plan for dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in T&T—in­clud­ing woo­ing pri­vate sec­tor ap­proach­es on this—was among high­lights of the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s 2021 Bud­get.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­cent­ly said, “Every­thing, in­clud­ing Gov­ern­ment ten­ders, will be digi­tised. In the ab­sence of in­for­ma­tion in the Bud­get speech on how this new thrust in every gov­ern­ment di­vi­sion will be safe­guard­ed, con­cerns were ex­pressed about the need for sys­tems to pre­vent hack­ing which has been oc­cur­ring in T&T.”

Young said the Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Unit work will in­volve fire­walls sys­tems and will han­dle re­new­al of li­cens­es, main­tain­ing gen­er­a­tors and serv­er up­grades.

Young al­so as­sured Gov­ern­ment has done its part to be ready for start of the elec­tron­ic bracelet mon­i­tor­ing pro­gramme for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence of­fend­ers—and is wait­ing for the ju­di­cia­ry to start is­su­ing or­ders.

The 300 bracelets are ready along with staff for the sys­tem—al­ready be­ing paid—and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture.

He al­so as­sured that Gov­ern­ment’s freeze on pub­lic ser­vice hir­ing won’t pre­vent pro­mo­tions which have been rec­om­mend­ed.

Young con­firmed the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre is back to hav­ing two pathol­o­gists af­ter hav­ing four pre­vi­ous­ly.

He said there’s no back­log but the sit­u­a­tion is of con­cern to Gov­ern­ment. Young said re­cruit­ment is on and ap­pli­ca­tions from some youths are be­ing eval­u­at­ed.

He said peo­ple weren’t rush­ing to be pathol­o­gists and re­mu­ner­a­tion wasn’t the is­sue. Gov­ern­ment has giv­en schol­ar­ships on this field.

The two pathol­o­gists, in­clud­ing an old­er la­dy cur­rent­ly em­ployed, work ac­cord­ing to de­mand, in­clud­ing if this re­quires a sev­en-day week. But he said their op­er­a­tional hours kept in line with con­di­tions to en­sure their work could be ad­mis­si­ble in court.

He con­firmed an­oth­er an­ti-crime pro­gramme for hotspots—The Cure Vi­o­lence pro­gramme used in Chica­go and New York to halt po­ten­tial vi­o­lence sit­u­a­tions. Work will be done by me­di­a­tors with com­mu­ni­ties.

Ef­forts are al­so be­ing made to re­duce prison over­time costs. He added prison over­time claims will be paid af­ter the sums are au­dit­ed by the Fi­nance Min­istry.

Young got in­to a tiff with UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal on a sub­ject they’ve ar­gued be­fore—gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

UNC’s Rod­ney Charles queried fund­ing for in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, Young said agen­cies had been work­ing and peo­ple were be­ing charged un­der An­ti Gang laws.

Young said per­haps some UNC MPs could as­sist the state on gang mem­bers and “who went for drinks where….” He re­ferred to Mooni­lal.

Young said there were “very dis­turb­ing” which he’d brought be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee and, “The names of mem­bers op­po­site are in those re­ports” he added.